Mexico's Post Office Goes Hot Pink

Will the makeover pull often tardy postal service out of the red?

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Mexico's notoriously unreliable postal service is getting the shock treatment — shocking pink, that is.

Infamous for lost packages and tardy delivery, the postal service is getting a hot-pink makeover to try to brighten up its image, win back customers — and pull it out of the red.

Changes include a new logo, new uniforms and pink-and-lime-green painted post offices. Some will also sell cut-rate rice, beans and powdered milk alongside stamps. Coffee mugs and envelopes — something the post office didn't sell before — will also be available, but only in hot pink and lime green.

The service's new symbol — a white carrier pigeon holding a letter in its beak — hit the streets Tuesday, a day after President Felipe Calderon unveiled the new look at a gala ceremony. The government hopes the new image and services will help the post office break even next year, after annual losses of up to $50 million.

Officials promise high-speed Internet access at post offices where clerks still struggle with manual typewriters and sort mail by hand.

Out are the dingy blue-and-white paint and threadbare uniforms the postal service has used for decades. The trendy new color scheme was chosen because "we want to be very visible ... in colors as brilliant, as vibrant as Mexico," said Purificacion Carpinteyro, who oversaw the remake and wore a hot-pink dress to Monday's ceremony.

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All 1,450 post offices will be painted with the new colors, both inside and out.

But in a country where mail theft is widespread and letters often arrive weeks after they're sent, the public is skeptical.

"I don't trust it," Mexico City resident Beatriz Stern said as she mailed a "very important letter" at a post office sporting a fresh coat of pink paint. She said she went there only because she doesn't believe anyone bothers to collect mail from the country's red street-corner mailboxes.

"They say it was faster in colonial times, when they used horses and carriages," Stern said.