Bell Canada to discontinue beaver mascots

August 1, 2008

Today, Bell Canada Inc.'s beaver mascots Frank and Gordon were discontinued as of Friday. A nation-wide full page ad depicting the beavers as saying "It's been a blast, [but] Nature is calling and we have been invited back to the forest to become teachers for a whole new generation of spokecritters."

The decision to discontinue the mascots was a symbol that Bell is under new management said spokesman Mark Langton. "It was time for a change. The beavers have served us well, they were very well known and quite popular and well known. But it's time to move on."

The two mascots were developed Quebec Cossette Communication Group in 2005 as Jules and Bertrand. A year later, they became Frank and Gordon nationally. There were both positive and negative reactions to the beavers.