1. Is Norwich Union AVIVing a laugh?
Insurance giant Norwich Union conjures up images of the countryside, smiling
farmers and a safe, and very British, sort of financial organisation,
particularly if you have never actually visited Norwich. Its new name,
Aviva,
conjures up nothing of the sort and sounds more like something a Mexican
magician might say. It has made £10m disappear though, and that's one hell of a
trick.
2. The Post Office
Do you even remember when the Post Office
changed
its name to Consignia back in 2001? Do you think that executives at the firm
ever choose to recall the time either? We think not. The name change was widely
reviled and, despite costing more than a couple of first class stamps, was
consigned to the dustbin of history just a year later.
3. Tell us why you don't like Mondays
PricewaterhouseCoopers thought that it liked the idea of having 'Monday' as its
name for a few days back in 2002. Not only did everyone find the idea of naming
a company after the worst day of the week to be a terrible idea, but the web
launch was
scuppered
by some web pranksters who managed to grab the co.uk version of the launch
page and have A LOT of fun with it.
4. The rum affair of old Abford and Bingster
Abbey National, Bradford & Bingley and the Alliance & Leicester could
have chosen a new brand made up of parts of all its other names, but Abford
& Bingster sound like a couple of P G Wodehouse characters. Instead of that
foppish-sounding pair, the firm has
plumped
for Santander, which doesn't make much sense either. But parents do get the
last say on naming their offspring, we suppose.
5. The department of what?
The Department of Trade and Industry spent a considerable amount of time and
money
rebranding
with a name so catchy that no one in the office could remember it. Ah yes, it
was the Department for Productivity, Energy and Industry - a name that annoyed
people because it no longer contained the word 'trade' and didn't exactly roll
off the tongue. Worse than that, its abbreviation to DPEI made some people think
of penises, and some pronounced it 'dippy', neither of which were good for the
department's reputation.
6. Sign of the times
Prince, or the Artist Formerly Known as Prince, or Prince Rogers Nelson as his
mum probably still calls him, has an odd symbol for a name. No one really
fancied installing it on their keyboard so we'll let you picture it. Have you
got something small, ridiculous, fussy and over-elaborate in your mind's eye?
There you go, that's Prince. Now let's get back to the symbol.
7. Bing gone?
Is naming a search site after a sitcom character known for giving sarcastic
answers really a wise idea? Microsoft thought so when it dropped Kumo for Bing
when
launching
its new search site. We think it's great too! (Note the sarcastic use of the
'!'.)
8. Snickers, Starburst and the death of childhood
Has renaming the above sweet treats had any real affect on their sales or
consumption? We don't know. But the mere mention of the new names for Marathon
and Opal Fruits has kept a lot of late night student conversations going, and
going, and going - and then popping down to the late night garage. We won't
mention Jif/Cif, as it's a cleaning product so most students probably won't have
heard of it.
9. Does it still come from Kentucky?
Why did Kentucky Fried Chicken stop using its full name and switch to KFC in
1999? We don't know. But there's a lot of theories out there. We don't like the
suggestion that it's because it doesn't actually 'fry' any 'chicken'. But
there's no smoke without a deep fat fryer.
10. The future is V3.co.uk
And no list would be complete without
our
own rebranding from vnunet.com to V3.co.uk. Which, of
course, will go as smoothly as everyone who has been paid to be involved in it
tells us it will.
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