Tony Hallett's After These Messages: Orange with rage?

This page has several times before looked at mobile operators' advertising and branding strategies. And why not? These companies are among the most aggressive marketers around, in many cases building strong and alluring brands in just a few years.

But, as everyone so often asks, how long does it take to sully such a brand? Not long, if you believe many in the industry.

This past week has seen easyGroup founder and all-round entrepreneur Stelios Haji-Ioannou pre-launch mobile phone operations around the world. These are still very early stage - no partners have been announced on which his services will piggy-back, for example - but they have caused a ripple in the market.

One reason is his mere entry, with a promise to bring the low-cost model applied to other industries - most notably air travel - to mobile. Some have characterised easyMobile's future as undercutting existing virtual operations around the world, such as Virgin Mobile's. (Though Sir Richard Branson's mobile business assures us it is hardly quaking in its boots.)

But another notable point is just how easyMobile will brand itself. Think about those planes, those car rental offices, those internet cafés, those... you get the idea. What colour jumps out at you? Orange, of course.

Now there are various shades of Orange, we all know that, but say 'mobile', say 'orange', and what do you think of? Answer: one of the top two or three most successful mobile operations worldwide.

Despite a few branding hiccups in recent times, Orange has been the standard-bearer for how to build a mobile brand. Others have been good - the launch of One2One in the mid-1990s comes to mind, as have recent displays from Vodafone and newcomer 3 - but Orange did it right, pretty much from the start.

In short, Orange has spent its existence building its brand.

So no surprise this week when Orange issued a brief statement on the subject of easyMobile, the meat of which said: "We believe that this will cause confusion for customers. The Orange brand represents a high quality, excellent value for money service. Easymobile [note, not easyMobile!] will not be offering a comparable service and as such, we have to protect the reputation we have built up over 10 years in the UK."

Will there be "confusion"? I doubt it. Will easyMobile hurt Orange's brand equity? Quite possibly.

At Stelios' event on Tuesday, he spoke of Orange making "threats to try and stop us" and fighting any action in court if necessary, with an Orange case being "without merit". He added: "I think they are afraid of the competition."

Not any old competition but maybe, just maybe, your competition, Stelios. After all, has Orange done anything to stop Sainsbury's use of its shade of orange, as per its usual branding, in the running of its virtual mobile service? I don't think so. (Though please tell me if you know otherwise.)

I see this as a storm in a teacup. It would be crazy for either side to waste money on lawyers in court over it. Can we imagine an 'easy' brand not using the orange consistent with the rest of that group? Can we imagine Orange customers or potential customers confusing the two options?

Orange clearly owns trademarks on the use of 'orange' pertaining to telecommunications. And it knows better than most that it must protect an asset that is so good that even at the time the operator was acquired by France Telecom, that telco rebranded all its other operations Orange, rather than choose another option.

But it shouldn't go overboard.