Wow...

http://cache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/dakar_01_12/19_17530393.jpg

More here:
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/01/the_2009_dakar_rally.html

 

that's fantastic.

I do think it's a bit mad to still call it the Dakar when it's in
South America, mind.

 

Round here the fashion is to change names unnecessarily. Two examples
from Sunderland Council - the Housing Benefit Offices are now Customer
Service Centres, and the Kite Festival, having achieved international
recognition, has become the International Friendship Festival.

 

You'd think they would've just changed it to the International Kite
Festival really - or iKite for short.

--
Krusty

'03 Tiger 955i
'02 MV Senna (for sale) '96 Tiger (for sale)
'79 Fantic Hiro 250 (for sale) '81 Corvette (for sale)

 

You. Coat. Now.

 

Nice!

Sunderland Hospital used to have those very fancy road-signs pictures
[1] in its literature - presumably to make it look more efficient and
businesslike. God knows how much that must have set them back, and of
course virtually all its patients knew where it was anyway.

[1] giving you directions from each arterial road, it would show an
exact picture of each roadsign that you would see at every junction -
as though every sign had been photographed.

 

why are norwich union changing their name, anyway? everyone knows what
norwich union is, they could just do the same as vauxhall/opel and have it
called different things in different markets.

as it is, it'll probably be called "uvavoo (formerly known as norwich union)"
for the next ten years, if not forever. like prince.

 

When Lucent came up with Avaya, we regularly wound their guys up by
pronouncing the new name as "uvavoo".

 

you clearly don't. Aviva is the rebranding of the company formed by
the merger of Norwich Union and Commercial Union/General Accident (CGU
after their own merger); it's not just NU by another name. Aviva also
includes Morley's and the RAC (IIRC).

not a good comparison - both Vauxhall and Opel are themselves brands
owned by General Motors.

 

It was the consulting wing of PwC - except it never _quite_ happened
before they became part of IBM.

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/517/1011517/inquirer-top-5-wrong-
tech-rebrands

 

That was PwC - they chickened out in the end.

I think one of the stupidest was Scottish Telecom rebranding as
"Thus".

 

Ditto with Cowies, which was a respected name and, I would have
thought, a valuable trademark. When the board ousted Sir Tom Cowie
they changed the name, presumably in a hissy fit, to Arriva.

 

is it

i was going on their own adverts, which go something along the lines of:
"norwich union is changing its name, soon to be called uvavoo" rather than:
"norwich union has merged with cgu and the result is called uvavoo"

the comparison is perfectly valid for the target market, who like me for
the most part doesn't give a **** who owns who and what is a brand of what,
they just see a name and associate it with a range of products (or vice
versa).

 

i think that's the abbreviated version. the full name is arriva
eventuallia maybeia.

 

Ah, that probably explains why I never noticed any advertising for it
last year.

 

Bear wrote:

In the early 70s the great corporation that was BMC/Leyland cars
decided to rename Jaguar as "Leyland Large Cars", I kid you not. They
even went to the expense of having new car badging, factory signs, and
everything else connected with the renaming made and shipped to Browns
Lane. When it all arrived and the renaming was due to be announced, the
whole lot was destroyed by the middle management guys and the shop
floor workers. I've seen a couple of XJ6 boot badges that somehow
survived, they were truly tacky.

--
Lozzo
ZX-7R P4 (for sale)
CBR600F-W trackbike
SR250 SpazzTrakka,
RD400F, somewhere
I see a bright new future, where chickens can cross the road with no
fear of having their motives questioned

 

The Jaguar boot badge now is truly tacky.
It looks like a graph of the share price, or as if a seagull crapped on it.

 

Crucially, only 37% of their sales are in the UK and only a portion of
those are under the NU brand, so with the NU aspect clearly being in the
minority the attachment to the name just isn't there anymore.

Not that that stops everyone I've dealt with in Aviva calling it NU,
mind.

 

well, from Norch aren't they, takes a long time to get used to an idea
round those parts.

 

York (CGU), Norwich (NU) and Dublin (Hibernian).

Point stands, though.