Musings on rebranding and nicknames

Writing by aj@lecraic on Friday, 20 of June , 2008 at 11:22 am

This ad ran in a lot of the newspapers last weekend. Eagle Star are rebranding to Zurich. Haven’t a clue why, and nor do I care. One thing I’m pretty sure of is the fact that it will :

“strategically align the vision and goals of our core competancies to achieve frictionless delivery of service to customers across all channels and marketplaces on a global as well as national level.”

I made that bit up of course, but it’s probably not far off what the company said about their rebranding.

The interesting bit about this campaign is how it is using well known faces to get the message home that the name is changing. So we have Jean Butler in this advertisement. Jean Butler is most famous for Riverdance. If you didn’t know that, go to the back of the class and put the ‘D’ hat on.

Anyway, there’s the lovely Jean staring wistfully into space and thinking of those happy childhood days and the names she used to go by – namely, Jean Bean, Freckles, Red and Super Hoofer.

I think it’s a good campaign and got me thinking about nicknames. Other than being labelled the Anti-Christ by my parents when I was a toddler, I didn’t actually have a nick name in school. My brothers did, but I didn’t.

Are nicknames only given to the popular kids at one end, and the unpopular ones at the other? Or could it be that I was forgettable and had no distinguishing feature or characteristic that set me apart? Not that a nickname is necessarily something that is an essential part of childhool. Oh wait, actually, as I type this a nickname my brother used to call me has come into my head. Wow, I had forgotten about it.  I used to hate that name. It was more of a taunt than a nick name. He called me Biddy or Biddy Baxter (depending on his mood) because I was a big fan of Blue Peter growing up. Biddy Baxter was the editor of Blue Peter for a long time. Hmm, amazing how things like that come up out of nowhere.

Any nicknames you want to share, feel free to divulge in the comments.

With all this rebranding going on, I read somewhere during the week that Brian Cowen’s look is not befitting that of a head of state. Commentators have pointed to Bertie Ahern’s transition from the seedy anorak look to the suave, sophisticated man we see today. So Brian is in need of some rebranding especially in the hair department judging by what I read. What better excuse for a Photoshop job than to do a hair transplant on Brian?

But whose hair to choose. Hmm, let me think for a sec. Got it. There can be only one – it’s Raef from the Apprentice.

Autographs later - form an orderly queue - don’t push at the back!

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Category: current affairs, design, the biz

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