I don’t know whether it was a peculiarly British thing, but the rebranding as KFC distanced them from the independent clones found in every town, called ‘Kansas Fried Chicken’, ‘Krunchy Fried Chicken’, etc., all with white & red shop fronts. They couldn’t trademark the generic format of that name.
Not to mention the Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation.
How about A&P Supermarket? The full name used to be “The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company” and actually looking at the corporate website, it still is. But no one calls it that.
KFC’s little music mistake reminds me of one I saw years ago in Anchorage, Alaska. Denali Real Estate was advertising a new development with “California Dreamin’” as the background music! Talk about cognitive dissonance.
Exactly. Someone would put up a post here asking, “Why do they have Hong Kong in the name? I live in Tulsa!”
Three cheers, Chuck!
I think what people can’t wrap their brains around are the multiple instances of companies that changed their accurately descriptive names to initials despite the fact that the business hasn’t really changed, and the descriptive name would still be as accurate as it ever was. KFC still serves fried chicken, ESPN still shows sports-related programming, and the AARP is still sticking up for retired people.
In fact, if it’s true that the AARP dropped the words behind their acronym for the reasons stated by BrotherCadfael, that seems pretty insulting to the people they claim to be serving. I mean, I can understand other businesses and organizations wanting to seem young and hip, but America’s largest organization of old people trying to distance itself from old people? That’s just bizarre.
“Buy a car through us and they’ll pave a little more paradise for ya”.
Do you know that AARP admits members today at the age of 50? That’s far below retirement age. So why stick with a name that emphasizes retirement?
Businesses change over time. The name that they became famous likely no longer matches the enterprises they are currently focusing on. So why keep a name that is misleading, outdated, insulting, irrelevant or just plain wrong? The longer they do so, the longer people like you think of them in terms of their past instead of their present.
My mistake. I didn’t know that. But KFC and ESPN still stand. The names are still very much descriptive of the businesses. Besides, an acronym will stick in people’s heads better than a short series of letters with no words to back it up.
The bank my mother uses is called PNC. When she was setting up her account I asked the Branch Manager what PNC stood for. She said it didn’t stand for anything. I said it must stand for something, that would just be too strange. She swore it didn’t. She has worked for them from the beginning and they have always said it doesn’t stand for anything.
She said the people who work there joke it stands for People Need Cash. And you are right, my mother can never remember the name of her bank.
You think it’s weird that KFC uses “Sweet Home Alabama”? How about the fact that first Kentucky Fried Chicken was on State Street in Salt Lake City, Utah?
KFC also serves roasted chicken. So would it have been better to make it “Kentucky Fried and Roasted Chicken, Chicken Pot Pies” or just go with the “KFC”?
Not quite, pepperlandgirl. The Salt Lake City store was the first franchisee. But Col. Sanders started out in Corbin, Kentucky
Until this post, I never really knew what ESPN stood for.
I thought A.A.R.P. offically changed to " AARP "
Cite?
Seriously, I think this statement is completely wrong. Take your own example. ESPN became a set of initials in 1985, long before it became a national phenomenon. People remember a set of initials pounded into their heads far better than they do Entertainment and Sports Programming Network. There’s no need for an acronym when the letters will do the job all by themselves.
If you have any evidence at all for the contrary I’d like to read it.
Meeko, I think you need some serious help. 
See here, here, here, and pretty much every book on mnemonic techniques ever written.
Actually, the way it works is that if someone remembers one or more of the words in the phrase, they’re more likely to remember the rest of the words, and from that they can work out what the acronym is.
Mmm, chicken! The other pink meat!
It’s kinda like in the Champions game, where they had the supervillain group HAVOC. They swear it’s not an acronym, but the “C” stands for “Coalition.”
This is what happens when you let supervillains name their own organizations.
Weird. Similarly, the K in in KDE doesn’t stand for anything. It’s just K Desktop Environment.
Um, no. First, those cites show the exact opposite of what your claim is - they say that remembering a string of words is easier if you remember letters. But that’s not the issue at hand. Second, memory tricks by non-scientists are not evidence. Third, none of this addresses the issue of the memorability of advertising slogans backed by multi-decade multi-million dollars campaigns.