What’s in a nam?
VCCP Founding Partner and Chairman Charles Vallance discusses why you should never let a rebrand become the story.
What’s in a nam? You may recently have read that the investment firm abrdn, formerly Aberdeen, has decided to reinstate its vowels. As one online wag observed, the decision brings to an end an uncomfortable and prolonged (the change took place in 2021) case of 'irritable vowel syndrome'.
The new CEO, Jason Windsor, has undoubtedly made the right decision. By restoring his brand name to its correct spelling he has, in his own words, removed an unnecessary 'distraction'. He's right because the name change saga - and it really was a saga, causing widespread mirth and bemusement - broke the most sacred of all re-brand laws.
Which is that, whenever you re-brand, the re-brand should never become the story. As soon as it does, as soon as a new wordmark/logo/symbol vamps the narrative, then it has failed the very narrative it was designed to serve. In the case of abrdn, the problem was heightened by the fact that it came rather late to the disemvowelment party.
The trend had begun with Flickr back in 2004, and soon began to snow-ball, especially after Jack Dorsey sent his first tweet on March the 21st 2006, almost exactly nineteen years ago to this day; "just setting up my twttr'.
Twttr was later to be re-emvoweled (once a bird enthusiast who owned the domain name Twitter.com was placated). But the voweless bandwagon had left the station. Scribd, Blendr, Mndfl, symplr, Grindr, Tumblr all joined in, until it was almost unusual for a new brand to be fully vowelled. Much of the fashion for vowel-culling was driven by a desire to gain a domain name advantage, either through cheaper registration costs or ease of trademark.
And in many cases, the missing vowel made phonetic sense. You don't really need the 'e' of Flickr to know how it reads. This becomes less true of Scribd, and less true still of Mndfl. By the time Aberdeen decided to lose all three of its e's, the result looked not just passé but also nonsensical.
Whenever you re-brand, the re-brand should never become the story. Charles Vallance, Founding Partner and Chairman, VCCP
The most recent rebrand saga has, of course, been Jaguar. Just like Aberdeen, it broke the cardinal rule by allowing its rebrand to overshadow the intended “new Jag” narrative. This led to an undignified media feeding frenzy. And a car-buying public still rather mystified as to what the rebrand might mean for the next generation of vehicles. Nature abhors a vacuum, and the one left by Jag quickly needs filling with some cars.
On the jeopardy scale, rebrands rank one notch lower than full renaming exercises. These can be the most fraught of all marketing exercises.
If you're bringing two brands together, do you favour one over the other, or do you start from scratch? If you decide to consolidate under an existing name, how do you avoid a civil war between competing factions within your business? And if you do start from scratch, there's always the risk of ending up with a Consignia on your hands – and then none of the factions will thank you.
In any renaming decision, there will be a multitude of factors that must be taken into consideration. As a result, no sweeping generalisations can be made about the dos and don'ts. Apart from one. Which is the Band-Aid rule.
Due to the sensitivities involved in “killing” a brand, which can have a significant impact on both employees and customers, it is tempting to be tentative and incremental. To drag things out, so the blow is softened. To have a two-month pre-announcement phase, followed by a three-month handover phase. Then a migration phase. Followed by a dedicated new-name introductory launch phase. And so on and so forth.
Nearly always, this kind of kerfuffle is to be avoided. You can wait as long as you like for the two brands to co-exist. But once the time for change has arrived, speed is of the essence. Painful though it may be, you just have to rip the Band-Aid off the old name and reveal the new one underneath. Told you, it didn’t hurt that much did it?
Unless, of course, you’ve chosen the wrong name. But I know none of you would ever do such a thing. You’re far too shrewd for that. All of you, I’m sure, would unerringly make the perfect choic.