What’s In A Name?
Certain brand names have become iconic over time…which is why I never understand why they’d want to change.
For example, Dunkin Donuts…the concept was that we like to dunk a donut in a hot cup of coffee. But once they got beyond selling donuts and coffee and branched out into other food products, they decided to simply call it “Dunkin”…which by itself really makes no sense.
The latest example was the Campbell Soup Company, announcing it was changing its corporate name to simply The Campbell Company because they now produce a variety of other products. Sure, the soup can will still say “soup” on it—we think—but since the other products Campbell’s produces have their own brand names, was it even necessary to change the name of the company?
You may want to have a can of pop, so you reach for a Pepsi…which used to be made by the Pepsi-Cola Company, but they long ago changed their name to Pepsico, to apparently sound cool at a time when we made up company names like that. Again, though…the name on the can remained “Pepsi” in most places, with “Pepsi-Cola” included in small print as well.
Now comes word that Yelloh, a food delivery company, is ceasing operations after 72 years. Well, they’ve only been known as Yelloh a short time…we all knew them as Schwan’s…which makes me wonder if by losing seven decades of brand recognition, they also wound up losing the business.
There’s a real tendency in business for new management to make changes right away, apparently to make it seem like they’re doing something. Change for the sake of change is not good, contrary to what some may believe.
