While there is no doubt that the power cuts in the Cape and elsewhere in South Africa cause untold hardship to business and costs millions in lost product and brand damage to SA, such a crisis does demonstrate our ability to laugh in the face of adversity. It will be interesting to see how Eskom rebuilds its brand image after the slew of emails doing the rounds with graphic evidence of how people view the brand now - my favourite is of the power pylons 'playing' hop, skip and jump with their electricity wires; and of the new Eskom 'bumper sticker' with a play on the words 'Eskom', to read: 'Eksdom' (meaning 'I am dumb' in Afrikaans). This might be subversive brand fun in the face of frustration, but does a brand untold damage - it will need some clever brand re-engineering to reverse. This week sees the start of the annual SA Marketing Research Association (SAMRA) conference and well done to the organizers for seeing a gap for a world class international marketing conference in Southern Africa, and for trying to meet those expectations. We'll be bringing you all the latest marketing and research trends from SAMRA this week. Enjoy! Louise Marsland, editor, editor@bizcommunity.com