Just thinking about all of these Sunderland changes, removal of a number of branded routes and introduction of the Northern styling.

Since GNE introduced branding to Sunderland, there has been (sorry if I missed any):
Black Cats
Magic Roundabout
The Empire
Doxford Clipper
Simplicity
Red Arrows (launched twice)
Fast Cats
East Durham (Peterlee ops)
Prince Bishops
Fab 56 (inc refresh)
Silver Arrows (originally Washington ops)
Laser (inc refresh)
Drifter (inc refresh)
Tyne Tees Express (Peterlee ops)
Lime (Chester & Stanley ops)
plus other temporary short term vinyls, all working out of Park Lane.
Obviously we all have our opinions about branding and whether it should be used or not etc, but taking a step back and looking at GNE operations in Sunderland, none of the brands working local services and competing directly against Stagecoach have been a major success or lasted for a significant period, excluding maybe a handful of the examples above.

The whole point of branding, is to increase loyalty and passengers numbers but for whatever reason, as passengers we have seen brands dropped, routes changed regularly, routes integrated with others, new brands introduced, fares reduced, timetables planned etc
There could be a number of reasons for the examples above, but Im not sure anyone can argue the campaign against Stagecoach has been a success.

Does anyone else have any thoughts on services in Sunderland specifically along the lines mentioned above?