UPDATE: What ever you do, don’t call Nortel Networks newest executive Clent Richardson, chief marketing officer. Given his charter to clean up the tarnished and severely damaged reputation of Nortel, he should be called Captain Clean, armed with a brillo pad and some ammonia. He has experience – he had worked at T-Mobile and Apple Computer in past lives, and will be heading up a newly “formed global marketing organization responsible for brand development and management, the company’s online presence, solutions marketing, advertising, public relations, sponsorships, promotions, community affairs, employee communications and events.”

Just got off the phone with Richardson. When I joked with him about the brillo pad, he agreed and said, “we need to let the customers and employees know that we are alive and well.” He explained that he had to do similar job at T-Mobile and Apple. “In both instances the business did take off. Nortel has a dominant and a prominent brand as well.”

“We need to become more of a marketing centric company and our marketing message needs to match our technology,” he says. “You can have world class technology, the customers really buy a solution and our message is going to be around that.” He says that in the post-bubble era it is becoming increasingly obvious that the value of a company is specificlly associated with its brand, and “are working hard to protect their brand. “