People in key Canadian markets have probably noticed a [teaser campaign](http://torontoist.com/2008/08/er.php) consisting of random cropped letterforms and the letters “er” popping up in subways and on billboards throughout their cities. After much speculation, we now know who is behind the campaign. Bell Canada has unveiled a new brand identity just in time for the launch of the (highly Bell-sponsored) Summer Olympics. Designed by [Zulu Alpha Kilo](http://zulualphakilo.com/), the new identity features a simplified logo (which I like) and an english-market campaign that uses abstracted “bell-ements” and a highlighted “er” as key identity traits (which I don’t like). The “er” highlighting seems completely arbitrary, and while “-er” as a suffix is generally applied to nouns to denote a person or thing connected or involved with, belonging to, or having (‘teacher’, ‘runner’, etc) or used in comparative adjectives (‘faster’, ‘longer’, ‘bigger’), the application in this campaign is highly inconsistent – leading one to wonder how the concept came about. A read through the brand launch [press release](http://www.bce.ca/en/news/releases/corp/2008/08/07/74829.html) does little to justify ZAK’s angle.  On the positive, the french-market-specific campaign features the tag-line “La vie est Bell” (with the re-worked logo taking the place of ‘belle’) in lieu of the english-market’s nonsensical “er”-ing. I guess a french “er” campaign wouldn’t make any kind of sense – not that the english-market campaign is a paragon of logic and clear conjugation.