{"id":253949,"date":"2025-03-07T12:30:05","date_gmt":"2025-03-07T12:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/07\/abrdns-rebrand-reversal-and-a-history-of-corporate-missteps\/"},"modified":"2025-03-07T12:30:05","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T12:30:05","slug":"abrdns-rebrand-reversal-and-a-history-of-corporate-missteps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/07\/abrdns-rebrand-reversal-and-a-history-of-corporate-missteps\/","title":{"rendered":"Abrdn\u2019s Rebrand Reversal and a History of Corporate Missteps"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/03\/06\/multimedia\/06xp-rebrand-dfiu\/06xp-rebrand-dfiu-facebookJumbo.jpg?ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Abrdn\u2019s Rebrand Reversal and a History of Corporate Missteps\" title=\"Abrdn\u2019s Rebrand Reversal and a History of Corporate Missteps\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Hw cn brnds sty cl? Nt by drpping vwls, one of Britain\u2019s biggest investment firms concluded this week, when it announced it was adding back the \u201ce\u2019s\u201d to its name four years after dropping them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The 200-year-old company is now called aberdeen group, effectively reversing a decision to <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.abrdn.com\/en-gb\/corporate\/news\/all-news\/sla-to-become-abrdn\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">rebrand<\/a> as abrdn in 2021 in a bid to pitch itself as a \u201cmodern, agile, digitally-enabled brand.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The decision four years ago was widely ridiculed. James Windsor, who took over as chief executive last year, said on Tuesday that it was time to \u201cremove distractions\u201d \u2014 less than two months after saying he had no plans to change the name.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Corporate rebrands can be critical to signifying a strategy shift but they also come with risks when companies veer too far from their purpose. Aberdeen\u2019s vowel-dropping rebrand was just the latest example of a company reversing course after a new name failed to lift its performance or its reputation with customers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<h2 class=\"css-13o6u42 eoo0vm40\" id=\"link-509207c6\">The Perils of Chasing Trends<\/h2>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Removing vowels from brand names or using a name with a deliberately misspelled word was not uncommon in the 2000s, especially among trendy technology companies. Businesses including Grindr, Flickr, Tumblr and even twttr, as Twitter (now X) was initially called, embraced the aesthetic. But today, that style can look out of date and embarrassing, said Laura Bailey, a senior lecturer in linguistics at the University of Kent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Often, when companies try to appear trendy, \u201cby the time they get to it, it\u2019s been around for too long,\u201d Dr. Bailey said. \u201cIt\u2019s like your parents doing it \u2014 it doesn\u2019t seem right.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">When it comes to financial companies, she added, another aspect to consider is: Do these businesses want to be cool, or should they go for a name that projects security and responsibility?<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"css-13o6u42 eoo0vm40\" id=\"link-496f2098\">A History of Rebranding Misses (and Some Hits)<\/h2>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Over the years, there have been several failed rebranding efforts. In 2009, PepsiCo U-turned less than two months after <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2009\/02\/23\/business\/media\/23adcol.html\" title=\"\">Tropicana<\/a>, its juice brand at the time, introduced new packaging that featured a glass of orange juice instead of its famous orange with a straw poking out of it. Angry customers described the new look as \u201cugly\u201d and resembling \u201ca generic bargain brand.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A year later, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.nytimes.com\/mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com\/2010\/10\/12\/gap-inc-puts-gap-back-in-logo\/\" title=\"\">Gap<\/a> took even less time to reverse course after unveiling a widely panned new logo for its stores that dropped the famous white lettering on a blue background that the brand had used for decades. The retailer took about a week to go back to its original rendering. \u201cOK,\u201d the company said in a statement. \u201cWe\u2019ve heard loud and clear that you don\u2019t like the new logo.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Britain\u2019s Post Office in 2001 was widely mocked when it renamed itself <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/1\/hi\/business\/1107663.stm\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Consignia<\/a>. The chairman, Neville Bain, said at the time that the new name would reflect that the office delivered much more than mail. Consignia lasted for about a year before the Post Office name was restored.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Some corporate rebrands have been effective. In 2012, Kraft Foods chose <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.nytimes.com\/dealbook.nytimes.com\/2012\/03\/21\/kraft-mondelez-and-the-art-of-corporate-rebranding\/index.html\" title=\"\">Mondelez International<\/a> as the new name for its snacking business \u2014 which includes brands such as Oreos and Philadelphia cream cheese \u2014 from nearly 2,000 names suggested by employees. \u201cMondelez\u201d was an invented word that combined \u201cmonde,\u201d the French word for \u201cworld,\u201d and \u201cdelez,\u201d a made-up word intended to suggest \u201cdelicious.\u201d So, \u201cdelicious world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In 2001, Andersen Consulting became Accenture after splitting from Arthur Andersen, the accounting firm. The new name was chosen from 5,500 options, which were whittled down to 500 and then 10 before the firm eventually went with Accenture \u201cbecause it implies accent on the future,\u201d The New York Times <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2001\/01\/16\/news\/whats-in-a-namecall-in-the-brand-consultants.html\" title=\"\">reported<\/a> at the time. Despite some skepticism, the brand has endured and the company has grown into a consulting behemoth with a stock market capitalization of about $215 billion.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"css-13o6u42 eoo0vm40\" id=\"link-3bd0a2bf\">Are Lowercase Letters a Good Thing?<\/h2>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Aberdeen has not completely gone back to its original name, choosing to keep its logo all lowercase. That puts it in line with a trend of teenagers not using capital letters when texting, Dr. Bailey noted.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt seems more friendly, or nicer,\u201d she said, adding that companies sometimes try to change their names to be more informal to project a personal image, rather than that of a big corporation. Still, they risk setting themselves up for another scenario in which their name will look out of date in a year, she added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/03\/07\/world\/europe\/aberdeen-abrdn-rebrand-vowels.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hw cn brnds sty cl? Nt by drpping vwls, one of Britain\u2019s biggest investment firms concluded this week, when it announced it was adding back the \u201ce\u2019s\u201d to its name four years after dropping them. The 200-year-old company is now called aberdeen group, effectively reversing a decision to rebrand as abrdn in 2021 in a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253950,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/03\/06\/multimedia\/06xp-rebrand-dfiu\/06xp-rebrand-dfiu-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[22865,27738,196428,169206,11137,196426,3913,196427,55366,723,109755,57306,2074,196425],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253949"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253949"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253949\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":253951,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253949\/revisions\/253951"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}