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#1
11-14-2003, 02:13 AM
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Why do companies change their names?
I have noticed lately that a lot of companies keep changing their names. Audio King is now Ultimate Electronics, Verizon is a relatively new name, Dayton's decided to be Marshall Field's, Accenture used to be another name (some accounting firm, I think).
Those are the only examples I can think of off the top of my head, but I am curious as to why it seems so frequent lately. Is it because they have no clearly defined corporate identity, or is there usually a legal reason behind it? 
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#2
11-14-2003, 02:23 AM
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1 - They merge with another company
2 - To create a new corporate identity or brand image 3 - They spin off from a larger company Accenture used to be the consulting arm of Arthur Andersen, the Big-5 accounting firm. Several years back they spun off into a separate entity called 'Andersen Consulting'. After a big lawsuit for the 'Andersen' name, Andersen Consulting became Accenture and Arthru Andersen became simply 'Andersen Worldwide'. Then they fucked themselves over that Enron thing and were carved up and acquired by the other Big-5s.
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#3
11-14-2003, 05:02 AM
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Seems to me it's a good clue that they are about to go under when they start playing around with their name. Especially if they change it to something where you can't tell who founded them or what they do anymore. Like Enron, MCIWorldCom, etc.
Maybe it's just coincidence, but personally I think it says something about their management when they start spending time on playing with their name instead of concentrating on whatever they are producing or selling. I expect you could have done well in the stock market during the past decade by selling off companies when they start playing around with their name. At the least, you could have avoided some big losses.
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#4
11-14-2003, 05:24 AM
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Company names have an intangible value called goodwill. When the goodwill is negative, it's not a bad idea to change the name. I knew a company back in the early 80s called AIDS. Arthur Andersen's consulting division spun-off and changed their name to Accenture.
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#5
11-14-2003, 05:32 AM
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I'm not sure where Enron came from, t-bonham. As far as I know they changed their name once, very early on when they were small and remained Enron from then on. They certainly didn't change it when things started to go wrong. They haven't even changed it now even though it's got about the worst goodwill capital of any name ever.
I think a lot of name changes come from two sources. The first is companies named after what they do (like the UK Post Office) wanting to disassociate themselves from that one activity as their products diversify (hence the Post Office becoming, for a while, Consignia). The other source is corporate re-imagining where the marketing drones think the company needs to be rebadged in order to create a dynamic fusion of the diverse synergies drawn from their ensemble business units. Either that or they're being sued for the name (WWF...)
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#6
11-14-2003, 06:52 AM
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Then there's Gator.
"CNet reports that Gator, everyone's favorite ad software, is changing its name to Claria. Gator's CEO says "We feel that the Claria Corporation name will allow us to better communicate the expanding breadth of offerings that we provide to consumers and advertisers." He fails to mention what "Claria" is supposed to mean or how it accomplishes this goal, but it seems that the name change may be no more than an attempt to distance the company from a moniker which has become involved in allegations of spyware." http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=0...tid=126&tid=95
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#8
11-14-2003, 07:21 AM
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What often bugs me is when a well-established, respected brand name is changed to a meaningless jumble of sounds. Examples: International Harvestor became Navistor. OK, maybe they wanted to reflect that they were no longer primarily made agricultural products. But what do they do now? The name gives no clue.
Another company (I can't recall their old name) became Novartis, which, frankly, suggests to me that they manufacture Beano.
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#9
11-14-2003, 07:57 AM
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#10
11-14-2003, 08:36 AM
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As you can see, there are all kinds of reasons. One of the most common is this one here -- a company has become part of a huge conglomerate that no longer wants to be specifically associated with the type of goods they've become known for. Another reason is a merger, where the new parent company wants to assert its own corporate brand (BP). Another reason is legal, where the company no longer has the right to a name (Andersen Consulting, WWF (kind of)). Another reason is to dissasociate itself from infamy (
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#12
11-14-2003, 08:50 AM
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Very often merged companies will take a name completely different from either of their components so neither of the original companies is implied to be the "lesser partner."
__________________
"Sherlock Holmes once said that once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the answer. I, however, do not like to eliminate the impossible. The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it that the merely improbable lacks." -- Douglas Adams's Dirk Gently, Holistic Detective
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#15
11-14-2003, 09:10 AM
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Enron, IIRC, evolved out of Houston Oil and Gas Corporation.
Similarly, once upon a time Exxon Mobil Corporation was Standard Oil of New Jersey and Standard Oil of New York. The name "Exxon", incidentally, is said to have been generated at random by a computer. There seems to have been a general trend in recent decades towards abstract, nonspecific names for corporations. This may be in part because such names cannot give the false impression that a company is limited to a particular locality or a particular line of products. I suspect it also has to do with a desire for something akin to "political correctness"; one reason companies adopt such bland names which effectively mean nothing is that they wish to avoid any connotations which someone, somewhere, might find offensive. I've long wondered if executives at 3M dropped the name Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing because they were afraid that some people might think of Minnesota as a hick place, or that "mining" would evoke images of dirt and sweat. Possibly somebody at K-Mart decided that "Kresge" sounded too ethnic, despite the name having built up decades of goodwill with the public. There has been a similar trend to substitute distinctive, representative logos with bland, abstract logos. Proctor & Gamble chose to phase out use of its venerable "man in the moon" emblem after a large part of the public came to the well-reasoned conclusion that the symbol was a way for the corporation to advertise that it endorsed Satan worship. Yet in recent decades a great many other companies have also stopped using traditional mascots, so that where the shelves of stores used to be littered with pictures of cute kids, cuddly kittens, elves, etc., we now mostly see arrows inside of circles, circles inside of arrows, arrows inside of circles inside of triangles, triangles inside of circles inside of arrows inside of circles inside of stars... Changing names can also be an effort to shed existing hostility or notoriety. This seems like a fool's game. It is said--no kidding--that The Internal Revenue Bureau had its name changed to The Internal Revenue Service because it was thought that taxpayers would feel friendlier towards it if they were told the agency was "serving" them. The town of Darren, Massachusetts had a negative image after a series of trials there which the town fathers hoped people would forget, so it changed its name--and people have spoken of the Salem Witch Trials ever since. Grandiosity also plays a role. Some years back the City of St. Louis briefly changed the name of Lambert Field to St. Louis International Airport in the belief that putting "international" into the name would give the city prestige. After public protests, a compromise was struck and the facility became St. Louis International Airport. I've never been able to look at that name in print without remembering that the folks in Green Acres used to fly out of Pixley International Airport.
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#16
11-14-2003, 09:45 AM
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Also bear in mind globalisation. Deloitte & Touche recently rebranded as "Deloitte" to make the brand name consistent across the globe, since the local entities in different countries often have different legal names. As part of this consistency exercise there's often an element of namechanging to ensure whatever's used is inoffensive and not already used in any country -- hence the move towards "meaningless" names, the ones most likely to be unused anywhere.
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#17
11-14-2003, 12:03 PM
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When Monsanto sold off it's chemical division, both sides quickly agreed that there could only be one Monsanto. After some wrangling, Monsanto remained the name for the agricultural products company and the chemical company became Solutia.
On the other hand, the Singer Corporation no longer makes sewing machines, having sold that division years ago. Sometimes names really should be changed. When Ralston Purina sold off its livestock feeds division, the new company was named Purina Mills. The two companies agreed to share the Checkerboard logo. But Ralston Purina kept its international livestock feed division, so in North America, Purina livestock feed was made by Purina Mills, while in Europe it was made by Ralston Purina. A few years later, when Purina Mills wanted to go international, they had to come up with a new brand, and without the Checkerboard. Then Ralston Purina spun its cereal division into a separate company (Ralcorp) and THEY got to use the Checkerboard, as well. Mind you, these were now three separate companies with no common ownership, no interlocking boards of directors, and with three separate lines of business. The result has been 20 years of confusion. People continue to call one company for information or complaints about one of the others. Some feed stores sell both Purina Mills livestock feeds and Ralston Purina pet food. And to top it off, all three companies are now owned by other companies. I'll take Verizon any day.
__________________
I'm not just a hack writer -- I'm a hack author
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#18
11-14-2003, 12:37 PM
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Many name changes are part of a corporate restructuring. Then there are the "rebranding" campaigns. These get very fuzzy. Consultants get paid big $$ to sit around and string phonemes together and tell executives that the resulting gibberish "conveys" some admirable abstract quality. Accenture had a reason for needing a new name, but what does its new name mean? Well, they planned to spend $100M to tell us that it "conveys" "an accent on the future". A survey found only 11% of respondents made this association; as large a portion that thought it had something to do with dentures.
Landor is one of the larger consultancies in this field. Responsible for such successes as "Federal Express changes name to FedEx" Other times rebranding is an attempt to dodge previous illwill: Altria corp is the former Philip Morris, for example.
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#19
11-14-2003, 12:52 PM
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Re: Why do companies change their names?
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At about the same time, they wanted to have more uniformity among the names of their department stores. Some had been known as Dayton's, some had been known as Hudson's, some had been known as Marshall Field's, and there may have been other names as well. I think it was determined that, while the name "Dayton's" is pretty firmly tied with Minnesota, "Marshall Field's" is best-known nationally, so they decided to go with that name for all the department stores. It is very strange, though. We used to have Dayton's and Norwest Bank and USWest, and now we have Marshall Field's and Wells Fargo and Qwest...it's all the fun of moving to a new part of the country without the hassle of packing, I guess.
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#20
11-14-2003, 01:30 PM
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Here's an excellent Salon article on the ridiculous corporate naming business.
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#21
11-14-2003, 01:50 PM
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The best one is all the money US Air spent to be told that they should change to US Airways. Sheesh. And they were happy with the money they spent!
One of the Target stores here is called Target Greatland. Is that a specific division of Target?
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#22
11-14-2003, 02:02 PM
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#23
11-14-2003, 02:06 PM
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In fact, here's a description of Salem, using the name, from 1629-1630
http://hawthorneinsalem.org/Literatu...t/MMD1626.html Quote:
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#24
11-14-2003, 02:18 PM
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#25
11-14-2003, 02:43 PM
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You're missing something here, Yabob. Alleghany changed its name to US Air in the late 1970s or so. Just about three or four years ago, as noted in the Salon article, US Air paid a shitload of money to a consultant (during another bout of re-image making), whose only recommendation was to change the brand from US Air to US Airways, which was already its legal corporate name. And they were pleased with their investment.
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#26
11-14-2003, 02:47 PM
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BP is no longer British Petroleum, its actual name is now just the letters bp. It changed because it is now no longer mostly British and it sells a whole lot more than petroleum now.
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#27
11-14-2003, 02:51 PM
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#30
11-14-2003, 03:29 PM
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 IIRC, after Worldcom went belly up, they are now resurrecting themselves under the MCI brand they bought out years ago, killed, and now bringing back.
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#31
11-14-2003, 03:46 PM
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Exxon was originally one of the regional SO corporations created by the early trust-busting breakup of Standard Oil. Each of the regional SOs had local rights to the SO name. Exxon had been using the brand name Esso (=SO) for their retail business, wanted to expand nationally in the US, and anticipated legal problems with use of the Esso name outside their own region. The solution was a name change, the potential business expansion outweighing the hit to accrued goodwill.
The Esso name is still used in Canada, where the legal problem didn't exist. Does anyone else still remember the MAD magazine back page that came out at the time with the big NiXXon sign on the White House, and the slogan "NiXXon, still the same old gas"?
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#32
11-14-2003, 04:08 PM
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Regarding Exxon, from a book on trademarks I read a long time ago: it was reported that, name wise, everything did go well then for Exxon. That is until the Exxon Valdez spill, then it was impossible to ignore that Exxon was getting the moniker of “the double cross” company!
I see now their name is Exxon/Mobil, I expect yet another name change in the near future.
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#33
11-14-2003, 04:45 PM
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Relatedly, I've been wondering if KFC's new efforts to convince us that eating fried (!!!) chicken is healthy is the consummation of the transformation it began by changing it's name from Kentucky Fried Chicken.
(God, I must be channeling Al Sharpton or something: "The consummation of the transformation of our stratification leads to reparation, and, of course, satiation. Can I get an amen form the brethren?")
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#34
11-14-2003, 05:01 PM
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I've always thought that Navistar was one of the most interesting and creative corporate name changes. The intention was to sound more modern and also to get away from the image of farm equipment. But instead of having a computer randomly generate a cool sounding name, they just mashed portions of their old name together: International Harvester = navester = Navistar. At least it's easily recognizable to me.
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#35
11-14-2003, 05:11 PM
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Posted by Tamex:
It is very strange, though. We used to have Dayton's and Norwest Bank and USWest, and now we have Marshall Field's and Wells Fargo and Qwest...it's all the fun of moving to a new part of the country without the hassle of packing, I guess. A few years ago, a large bank based in Minnesota named Norwest bought a fairly small bank based in California called Wells Fargo. Logic would dictate that Wells Fargo be swallowed up and change its name to Norwest. However... Outside of their home turf, it was "Nor-what?" And in the musical "The Music Man" the song isn't "The Norwest Wagon is a-coming round the bend." The execs at Norwest decided to go with a name that's been etched into everybody's minds for the past gazillion years, even if it was the name of what they were buying.
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#36
11-14-2003, 05:18 PM
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This kind of thing is fairly common in the banking world. Cincinnati-based Star Bank swallowed up Firstar Bank, but changed its name to Firstar and moved its headquarters to Milwaukee. Then Firstar Bank swallowed up US Bank, but then changed its name to US Bank and moved its headquarters to Minneapolis (or something like that).
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#37
11-14-2003, 09:17 PM
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I'd just like to highlight how a lot of these name changes come about from the usual "Well, we paid the consultant millions, so we have to implement their ideas." weirdness that just floats around in Big Business. It's been made fun of lot's of times in Dilbert, but just like "paradigm", they still use it.
So if the consultant says change the name, they change the name. United Parcel Service, moved its HQ to Atlanta for no good reason. Then changed its name to just UPS and dropped the old box logo for a shield shaped one. A shield? "We do more than ship boxes." So you ship shields now????
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#38
11-14-2003, 09:42 PM
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They went with the Wells Fargo name, because their consultants' research told them that name was much more known than Norwest. Alas, they eventually learned it was well known to people because so many had had bad experiences with Wells Fargo. So the name was not just famous, it was infamous! Turns out that Wells Fargo was rather known in the banking industry for regularily showing up on surveys as near the bottom in ranking on customer service. (With all they paid to consultants, you'd think that might have been mentioned...)
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#39
11-14-2003, 09:46 PM
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Quote:
http://uhaweb.hartford.edu/COHN/larg...cial_banks.htm
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#41
11-15-2003, 01:07 AM
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#42
11-15-2003, 07:33 AM
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Since the late 60s/early 70s, Rolls Royce Aerospace and Rolls Royce Automotive have been completely separate, independent companies...which share a name and logo.
Back in the early 80s, International Harvester were hurting financially, so they dropped their tractor and light truck (SUVs and pick-ups) divisions to concentrate on heavy trucks (tractor-trailers).
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#43
11-15-2003, 09:47 AM
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My least favorite changes are when A&P went to Superfresh and K&B became Rite Aid. Of course, I liked Katz & Besthoff before K&B.
Now that I think about it, "Kreekurmudgeon" seems to be loosing its sex appeal. Maybe I should consider a name change.
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#45
11-15-2003, 04:43 PM
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Also, there's a bit of a legal reason for using gibberish-y names like "Accenture" - they get the strongest trademark protection. Here's an explanation, summarized:
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#46
11-15-2003, 04:46 PM
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#47
11-15-2003, 04:58 PM
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And if you have ever been in the Downtown Minneapolis Target, allegedly the "Flagship" store, the place always looks like a bomb just hit it. I'm talking Wal-mart mess. But it does have an escalator for the shopping carts, which is beyond cool.
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#48
11-15-2003, 08:14 PM
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I saw a story on 20/20 (A US News ('News Magazine') program on ABC-TV) yesterday (11/14/03) that talked about Dupont and the number of birthdefects caused by inhaling the Teflon chemicals... 20/20 quoted 2 in 8 Female Dupont workers gave birth that resulted in the child having a birth defect. (In the eyes/ tear ducts.) About an hour later, on a Cable channel, I saw a Commercial.... Lo and behold, Invista is the new name for Dupont... I doubt this was a co-incidence. I think more often than not, a name is changed for the mere "If we change our name, our problems will disapear". I think MCI/Worldcom did this.... Phillip Morris is now Altria and these are the ones I cought... I can only imagine what other names slip by, and what histories go by with it.
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