Sunday, June 1, 2008

Swiss Post

Along with my order for the International AddressGuide (2007/2008 edition) from Swiss Post (more about that later) I received a "glow in the dark" postal code map of Europe.

Almost every inch of my walls is covered by postal code maps, and it looks very much like they take their data from the same source, as they share many idiosyncratic errors. Postal code area 59 in Italy, for example, is always missing; Leicester is shown as LG instead of LE on some of them, and so on.

I am, though, rather more concerned about this particular map being used as a marketing tool by Swiss Post to intimate their extensive coverage and knowledge. For the map shows Serbia & Montenegro as a single country (dissolved in 2006) and has Lithuania's pre-2004 postal code system.

Perhaps nobody will notice - after all, it glows in the dark! - and we all make mistakes - but I think somebody in Swiss Post's marketing department should have looked a bit harder before sending it out. It reflects badly on them when their international knowledge should be better than that.

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