Avoid Repeating the Same Mistake while Renaming a Brand
While rebranding, avoid repeating the mistake and choose a unique, futuristic, and short business name.
In December 2021, payments company Square rebranded to the new name Block to fold other areas of business such as music (it acquired Tidal) and bitcoin. In my opinion, it is not a wise decision. The former name of the company ‘Square’ was also a non-brandable dictionary word and it also lacked exactly matching domain name.
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The company repeated the mistake. The word ‘block’ is another dictionary word with no uniqueness. It also lacked a .com domain extension because the ‘Block’ company launched website with a non-standard .xyz domain extension. A tax preparer, H&R Block also sued Block Inc. for trademark infringement.
Another company also redid the mistake while renaming its business name. In my opinion, WellPoint was a comparatively better name but the company rebranded its name to Anthem Inc. in 2014. I think it was not a good decision because ‘anthem’ is dictionary word providing no exclusivity to the brand.
However, the company changed the name in June 2022 from Anthem to Elevance Health. It also changed the ticker symbol from ‘ANTM’ to ‘ELV’ in New York stock exchange. In my opinion, Elevance is a unique, short and good name. However, in my humble opinion, the company did another branding mistake. It does not own the short (elevance.com) domain - if the exact domain was not available, the company should have avoided choosing ‘Elevance’ for rebranding. The website domain name is not good - it is long. The word ‘health’ should not be the part of domain name.
In my opinion, if a company is rebranding, it should keep the main popular keyword in the name while removing the extra, in effort to keep the name short. For example, the name of The King Arthur Flour Company was changed in 2020 to King Arthur Baking Company because the company had expanded the product line other than wheat flour by including bakery products.
I think, it was unnecessary to include ‘baking’ in the rebranded name. Simply the ‘KingArthur’ was enough.
I also observed that the owners gave little importance to the digital change. It is old company of America dating back to 1790 but the domain was purchased only in 2019. It is noteworthy that wise owners of most old companies had purchased domains in 1990s, for example Sargento had purchased domain in 1995.
So, in future for further possible expansion, the company may have to remove the word ‘baking’ from the brand name.
Quantam Computer Services repeated the mistake while rebranding to America Online – a descriptive and long name. So, the owners had to use its acronyms AOL in 2006 to shorten it.
More Resources
Check following helpful resources.
Why Companies Rebrand? Reasons behind Rebranding.
Cost of Rebranding a Business | What is changed during rebranding?
Tips for rebranding and renaming a company name.
18 Inspirational Examples of Companies that Successfully Rebranded.
Reason to Choose Non-Restrictive Business Name for Rebranding.
Explore Branding ideas and tips.
