Portsmouth rebranded by Ericsson, by Ericsson

TOURISTS ENTERING Portsmouth last weekend, could be forgiven for thinking it had been renamed Ericsson. The Swedish telecoms giant's name was plastered all over the famous British port.

This feat turns out to be the handiwork of one Dave 'Brand it' Curl, who managed to get the Ericsson (and Sony Ericsson) emblems onto everything in sight.

We're not just talking banners on hospitality suites, the Ericsson name was on the passenger ferry and on old, abandoned forts which formerly protected this naval port. The piece de resistance was a banner trailed behind a light aircraft.

This was all because Ericsson had a yacht in a race around Portsmouth harbour. You wouldn't have known that the actual race itself was sponsored by another Swedish firm, Volvo.

The net result? Well, actually the Ericsson finished fifth (but not last). As they say here in Blighty - "It's not the winning that matters, it's the taking part."

Professional to the last, Curl even handed intrepid INQ hack, Tone 'Call me skipper' Dennis a press release aboard a small yacht which was shadowing the race vessel.

The INQ predicts that Curl's time will be taken up announcing customer wins as a result of the event. Vodafone is tipped as a hot favourite here. µ