This could also be called ‘How to keep your Customers on their Toes’.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ti_gmwcP9Pg
Thanks to Mike Myatt of N2Growth for highlighting this YouTube video via his Ecademy blog.
Why do companies and organisations that are well established feel the need to change names so often?
Especially when the original name is so well known. Is it sometimes just a case of hopping on the ‘trend bandwagon’ and ditching tradition because tradition isn’t ‘cool’ any longer?
In the UK a few years ago, The Royal Mail which until recently had a complete monopoly on all postal deliveries in Britain called in the branding experts. Even though The Royal Mail can trace its origins to 1516 when Henry VIII established a ‘Master of the Posts’, in 2000 one of the most well-known and trusted brands was re-christened ….
As the UK postal market was being gradually opened to competition and with operational problems becoming more commonplace, a change of name was deemed essential. Do away with the past. We’re new, we’re 21st century, we’re hip … let’s call ourselves… drum roll…..Consignia.
Excuse me. Re-wind.
Replace an instantly identifiable name with what?
Replace a name that conjures up pictures of granite-like posties delivering the mail when the rest of us are struggling through the blizzards and thunderstorms, a name that encouraged us to read the tales of Postman Pat and his trusty side-kick Jess to our children. Surely not?
But hey-ho.
Rather than deal with the competition and sort our problems, hey guys let’s pretend we’re somebody else and let’s spend a fortune on re-branding ourselves with a word that Joe Public has never heard of.
But it’s clever – combining consign (to deliver) with insiginia.
Not surprisingly, the new name sunk without trace as customers and employees refused to adopt Consiginia and insisted on using The Royal Mail. In 2002 the old name was back and by 2004 all traces of the disaster were gone.
Sometimes we’re too quick to ditch the old and bring in the new.
