Rebranding is one thing, but spare us the PR razzmatazz
We’ve all had those light-bulb moments. Every so often, when you’re least expecting it, the pieces of a puzzle slip together and you shout “eureka” at your own brilliance. These scenes must be commonplace at marketing firms the world over, when wrangling with that thorniest of PR dilemmas: what to rename a company.
Netherlands-based Philips Lighting – a company that, handily, makes light bulbs – had one such moment this week. After 125 years it is rebranding itself “Signify”. The choice of name, we are told, is because “light becomes an intelligent language, which connects and conveys meaning” – more than could be said for the press release.
This is “another step in our transformation journey”, Philips/ Signify added, and “a clear expression of our strategic vision”, which is – I assume – to continue making light bulbs. Signify will carry on making products with the Philips name under licence; it transpires the name change was a condition of its parent company, Royal Philips, selling down its stake in the business last year, so it is no longer a controlling shareholder.
Signify’s rebranding is positively elegant compared to Statoil’s attempt this week. In its latest ad campaign, the Norwegian oil company declared: “Thank you Statoil, it’s been a pleasure!” For Statoil is no more: it has become “Equinor”.
“Equi” refers to equality and equilibrium – both good things. And “nor” is for its Norwegian origin. Not that it really matters – the main thing is it doesn’t have “oil” in its name.
Statoil, which has a turnover of around $60bn (£43bn), is merely the latest in a long line of oil companies using marketing to shift focus away from the fact they still pump millions of barrels of the black stuff out of the ground. Oil, after all, has become the bogeyman for many green-minded investors and consumers. There is a concern, too, that the industry’s less than stellar environmental reputation is putting off young recruits. BP stopped referring to itself as British Petroleum and attached itself to the slogan “beyond petroleum” – before ditching it when it sold most of its renewable energy investments.
Last year London-listed Danish firm Dong Energy rebranded to “Ørsted”, saying oil and gas are “no longer who we are”. The new name was in honour of the scientist Hans Christian Ørsted. Perhaps its original name – short for Danish Oil and Natural Gas – induced too many sniggers among English speakers. But the new identity hasn’t been plain sailing either, with descendants of Ørsted complaining of appropriation and launching a lawsuit.
All of which is evidence enough that rebranding is tricky. It always has been, as Statoil found to its cost. Within an hour of the announcement, observers noted the site equinor.no was owned by a veterinary surgery, also called Equinor, which will no doubt be receiving a big cheque in the post. This problem seems to happen to even the biggest companies, as Google discovered when it renamed its parent company Alphabet, only to find the web domain was held by a BMW subsidiary.
Signify fared rather better, ensuring it controlled the .com domain, though curiously signify.nl is vacant.
As brand names go, Equinor and Signify are not even that bad. One of them is even a real word. There have been far worse.
Media companies have been especially guilty of this: Tribune Publishing became Tronc; Trinity Mirror wants to be known as Reach. My favourite has to be recruitment firm Matchtech, which became Gattaca, apparently not realising this was a science fiction film about eugenics (it has stuck doggedly with
‘You may sacrifice whatever brand recognition you have built and open yourself up to vast ridicule’
the name, so fair play). As these examples show, rebranding is an art not a science, and the whole business is just about one of the riskiest things a management team can do.
For a start, you may sacrifice whatever brand recognition you have built up. You may encounter teething problems in asserting the new name. And you may open yourself up to vast ridicule. Given these dangers, it’s remarkable that any company rebrands at all – even more so when you recall that most rebrandings are entirely self-inflicted.
There are a few cases when events dictate a new name is necessary, such as private equity firm Isis, which prudently swapped its name for the nicely generic “Livingbridge”. And there are times when the firm in question wants to obscure rather than embrace its legacy. Gun-maker Smith & Wesson, for example, became American Outdoor Brands, which sounds like a camping chain – a move so disingenuous it makes Big Oil’s efforts to rebrand look modest.
In truth the real cringe-worthiness in Statoil’s move comes from the corporate video that accompanies it. A smorgasbord of stock imagery pummels us with scenes of caterpillars turning into butterflies, teenagers squeezing spots and babies being born, as we are told “life is change”.
One particularly jaw-dropping moment is when it says “you can try to fight change … but it’s not easy”, before cutting to a shot of an older lady who seems to have undergone cosmetic surgery (surgery-shaming a senior citizen is certainly a novel advertising approach). And the film co-opts very on-message slogans, such as a girl wearing a “future is female” T-shirt – a rather desperate ploy that will only earn the scorn of the millennials it is trying to impress.
Finally, we arrive at the point of the film, which is to tell us that an oil company is changing its name. You won’t have guessed this until now, because there is not a barrel of oil to be seen. In short, it’s utterly dreadful.
This would be forgivable, perhaps, if Equinor signalled a radical change in direction. Instead, chief executive Eldar Saetre tells us “the Norwegian continental shelf will remain the backbone of our company”, and it will continue growing in oil and gas as well as renewable energy.
It expects to invest 15pc to 20pc of total capex in “new energy solutions” by 2030. So it’s still going to be an oil company (it produced 1.98m barrels of oil equivalent a day in 2016).
I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. We all need oil for our daily lives and will continue to do so for many decades. It’s a fact of life if you want your car to move in the morning.
At the same time, any new investment in renewable energy before we deplete our resources and frazzle the planet is highly welcome.
Just spare us all this corporate nonsense and treat consumers with a bit more respect. That would truly signify something different.