Names

I provided some thinking for Alex to write an article about names. I don't know what happened to the article, and I can't claim authorship anyway, but so I don't forget, here are my four suggestions for when a company or brand may need a new name.

1. Legal requirement. Andersen Consulting to Accenture. 6 weeks warning.

2. Change of strategy or positioning. Eg. Lucky Goldstar to LG (arguably BP too). I guess change of CEO would come under this bucket too.

3. Business efficiencies. Having one name around the world may be cheaper for producers. Marathon bars are now Snickers (I can't see any other reason that cost savings), Opal Fruits now Starbust, etc.

4. Brand equity. Toyota didn't think its name had enough premium cues to enter the luxury car market, hence Lexus. Often local brands carry more equity then intruder brands hence Chevron keep Clatex and Texaco where they have equity. Vodafone, if buying locally, rebrands Vodafone. You would if you wanted to position yourself as an international communications company.

MacLash

Martin Thomas come by CPB a month or two ago. Originally it was for a catch up and a cup of coffee, but Alex and I were just having a chat about this . It seemed opportune to get Martin in on the conversation, especially as he was thinking of ways to get his new book publicised. So we got planning. One of the offshoots of this was Alex's post on the CPB blog about Apple being 'oppressive', here. This in turn got picked up by a journalist from The Independent and became this.

It's pretty interesting and we all got a mention. This thought has been knocking around in my brain since I worked on Dell a couple of years ago. I must admit, I thought it was going to come around a little quicker than it has; again testament to Apple's brilliance. And I don't think it will come just yet either. But given the state of Job's health, the fact that people don't tend to like the big boy for too long and that Apple is now the big boy, and that the world seems to exist so much in beta nowadays, unless Apple are just head and shoulders above anyone else, they will being to suffer, perhaps rather more slowly, but nevertheless, still suffer the fate of other tech companies and plateau to decline. And that was a long sentence.