Reddit user onlyahippowilldo asked:
"What's the dumbest corporate rebranding?"
Who Are You?
"Ditching the name 'HBO' is certainly a decision."
~ 44035
"And now they're releasing HBO originals on Netflix. It's like they're literally destroying a household name that was the only thing going for them."
~ esoteric_enigma
"HBO Go -> HBO Max -> Max"
~ nthroop1
"I loved how Peacock responded with a statement not to get excited, they weren't doing that."
~ Ok-Cheetah-9125
"Haha, had to look it up and sure enough:"
~ fixedtypo
Then Whose Is It?
"Not really a rebrand, but when Oldsmobile went to the 'This is not your father's Oldsmobile' campaign, they basically alienated the only group of people who actually were buying Oldsmobiles at the time.
"And now, nobody is buying Oldsmobiles."
~ jpiro
So, Where Is It?
"The University of Western Sydney just recently spent millions of dollars to rebrand to Western Sydney University."
~ Orion2200
"The Canadian version of this is when The University of Western Ontario spent a bazillion dollars rebranding to Western University."
~ VonVilhelmVilhelm
"What’s western about it? It’s not in the west of Ontario."
~ theducks
"That’s easy. It’s west of the centre of the universe (Toronto). It doesn’t matter that it’s eastern canada and eastern Ontario."
~ skippy2893
"I thought I heard that even after they did this, they're still legally called University of Western Ontario in an official capacity."
"So what was even the point?"
~ aureentuluva1
GiphyJuicy Details
"Tropicana; removing the famous red-white straw directly into the orange imagery for...an unbranded clear glass of orange juice in a generic-looking (white-labeled-looking) package."
~ KBeeFree
"They lost $65 Million! They spent $30 Million on the rebrand and lost $35 Million in sales."
~ Wearesyke
When Your Office Logo Is NSFW
"The former UK Office of Government Commerce, which spent £70k on a logo redesign circa 2008."
"The logo was the initials OGC, which when turned 90° looks like a guy having a wank."
"The best part of that fiasco was the response of a spokesman."
"'It is not inappropriate to an organisation that's looking to have a firm grip on Government spend'."
"firm grip"
~ MonseigneurChocolat
GiphyIf You Don't Know By Now...
"It’s been years since Angie’s List was rebranded to Angi and they’re still running ads that clarify who they are based on the old name."
"Great work, everyone."
~ patopatogris
"I haven't heard anyone explain the rebranding, but I strongly suspect that morons were confusing them with Emily's List and assuming they were a pro-choice group."
~ Cultural-Company282
Laser Kiwi!
"New Zealand spent 26 million on a new flag and then it lost to the old one in a vote."
~ thorpie88
"The insane thing is... They. Didn't. Hire."
"They crowd sourced. I sh*t you not."
~ davetenhave
"Did it actually cost millions then?"
~ sbenfsonw
"The design of the flags no, but the referendum to ask the populace if they want the new flag did."
~ confused_yelling
@ThompsonLars/Twitter
The Jokes Write Themselves
"The parcel delivery company Hermes which became Evri."
"Now Evri parcel is lost."
~ AHat29
"I used to have a subscription with a company that used Hermes, I had two parcels that hadn't shown up in the same month so I requested new ones, these too didn't arrive so I cancelled the order completed."
"A few months later they were back in touch to offer me a new deal, I declined and when pushed said they had a new courier; the 'new' courier was Evri..."
~ E17AmateurChef
THAT Pat
"ABC Family to Freeform. I never understood."
~ Kai-Tlyn
"That particular cable channel has probably rebranded more than any other:- Christian Broadcasting Network
- CBN Family Channel
- The Family Channel
- Fox Family
- ABC Family
- Freeform"
"They’ve been trying to distance themselves from Pat Robertson’s (yes, THAT Pat Robertson from 700 Club) who owns a significant portion of the network."
"They are legally required under a long standing contract to play Christian Broadcasting Network content. It’s a good way to not have the ABC/Disney brand connected to that religious content."
~ jimb575
GiphyNew Name, Same Great Service
"Comcast -> XFinity"
"I was involved in some of the meetings for that as a outside contractor. It was the dumbest move ever."
"90% of the people involved knew it was dumb, but a handful or morons at the top really thought Comcast's bad reputation would just magically disappear with the rebrand."
~ woogychuck
"I was a third party contractor who would sometimes get contracted out troubleshoot or install Comcast internet or cable."
"It was right around the time of the rebranding and let me tell you, it confused the hell out of every single person."
"The consumers, the techs, the bosses, nobody knew what to call anything for a while."
~ IWearBones138__
"I can't imagine what it was like as contractor."
"One of the websites my company was hired to build was intended to convince contractors to pay to have their own vans painted to match the new branding."
"When we told Comcast/Xfinity marketing folks that literally no contractor was going to willingly spend $3-6k to rebrand their vehicles, they acted like we were crazy."
"They geniuinely thought installation and repair contractors we be so excited about the 'earning potential' of the rebrand that they would spend thousands to do it. We fortunately lost the project to another company."
"They were seriously disconnected with reality."
~ woogychuck
"A marketing department disconnected with reality‽‽ No way!"
~ chapswithnocaps
GiphyNot Comic Sands?
"In 2010 the Gap paid an ad agency a bajillion dollars to rebrand. They came up with the name typed in Arial (Helvetica?) font.
"The Gap announced the rebrand. They were roundly mocked for spending a gorillion dollars on something that it takes two seconds for anyone to create."
"They decided to just continue using the old logo. The rebrand lasted six days."
~ VonAether
"'We believe this is a more contemporary, modern expression. The only nod to the past is that there’s still a blue box, but it looks forward'."
"It always cracks me up hearing big market whiz guys trying to explain the most mundane, boring attempt at innovation."
"Not a single consumer in the world is going to look at the Gap logo and thinking that."
~ IWearBones138__
And the Winner (loser) Is...
"Twitter to X"
~ squid1891
"This is the answer. Twitter had a brand name so recognizable, it became a literal verb that was widely used in the cultural lexicon."
"Sure, Facebook had posts and statuses, instagram had stories, but the word 'tweet' is synonymous with and unique to Twitter."
"Companies spend millions on marketing to try and get something to catch on and stick like that, it’s like striking gold, any marketing exec would kill for it."
"Baby Huey Elon threw it in the trash like it was yesterday’s news for literally the most generic, garbage branding imaginable."
"It’s stranger than fiction."
~ aveganrepairs
"Now instead of tweets we have 'excretions'."
~ Bikrdude
"On an app called X(sh)itter."
~ bobjoylove
"Cue clip of Uncle Eddie emptying his RV septic system. 'Xitter's full!'."
~ Jesus_Is_My_Gardener
"Xitler"
~ valeyard89
GiphyCompanies—and countries—have various reasons for wanting a rebrand.
When it works, the results can be phenomenal.
But when it flops, no one will ever let you forget it.
Giphy
All of the companies I worked for in hospitality were blood suckers. They used and abused every employee they could while fleecing patrons. But hey... money, money, money.
No Cocoa
jean claude van damme chocolate GIFGiphy"Nestle, forget those guys." ~ ZWally6
"They've done some pretty bad things: https://www.zmescience.com/science/nestle-company-pollution-children/." ~ quantumronin2
An Empire
"Dupont." ~ UpperIce5314
"This company has been restoring the façade of the building I live in in downtown Los Angeles, and the solvent they were using was so potent, I had to relocate myself from my apartment. I complained to the building manager. Of course I look up online who makes the solvent and it's Dupont. FML." ~ futurespacecadet
Sucking Life
"Purdue pharma, literally drug dealers who caused the opioid crisis. Also the banana companies, who overthrew central American governments, installed dictatorships and kept the people poor while sucking all the profit from the land in their countries. (Chiquita, dole and del Monte)." ~ philip_andrew
Billions!
"Shell." ~ thatfreemanguy
"Aren't they the ones that figured out carbon emissions would cause catastrophic climate change in, like, the 70s and buried it? They will probably be responsible for billions of deaths in the end. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, they all put up rookie numbers compared to hiding and playing down climate change for decades." ~ OkChildhood2261
Take over
Google It John Oliver GIF by Last Week Tonight with John OliverGiphy"Google is getting there, so far as becoming a monopoly goes." ~ TheSanityInspector
"They removed the "don't be evil" clause from their mandate: https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-dont-be-evil-from-1826153393". ~ the_honest_liar
Shady Shady
"Sandoz - my brother worked there - he reported some shady crap and got blackballed from the industry.Three/four years later - this happens... https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/02/novartis-subsidiary-sandoz-to-pay-195-million-over-antitrust-allegations.html" ~ EveningIll8042
Monopoly
"As someone in the process right now: CollegeBoard. There is no good that comes out of a monopoly over education and people seeking a good university." ~pop1fizz
"Your problem is that you've bought the marketing that nonprofit is synonymous with good. It is not. It's only a form of corporate structuring that imposes certain limits and gives other benefits, just like any form of corporate structuring." ~ ManlyMisfit
"debt-capitalism"
"Blackrock." ~ No_Lynx_8737
"Blackrock is currently buying up as many homes as they can as part of their great reset where everything is rented to you. Part of a "debt-capitalism" plan. They really ARE evil." ~ PolskiHeart
"So in the UK, some of the big cities will have purpose built student accommodation blocks. Rooms will generally have their own bathrooms but then will have a shared kitchen."
"The nicer rooms will pretty much be a one bed apartment so the whole thing looks more like a hotel than it does student accommodation. There are several companies that run these but the biggest one which owned their own buildings was bought up by BlackRock. Most of the London buildings were like 20+ floor tower blocks in sought after locations near universities and transport links so you can imagine each one was worth quite a lot." ~ TofuBoy22
Where to Begin?
Tell Me More To Do List GIF by Disney ChannelGiphy"Coca Cola, PepsiCo, Nestle, Kellogg's, P&G, Mondelez, Unilever, Mars, General Mills… Basically all big companies that have a carppy human rights record and give you the illusion of choice." ~ Rerrereddd
That is quite a list. We are in troubling times, but we always have been. Until money is no longer an obsession, we'll make no progress.
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