BRANDING

Companies that made a name after a change of name

US-YAHOO'S-HEADQUARTERS-IN-SUNNYVALE,-CALIFORNIA A signpost in front of the Yahoo! headquarters in Sunnyvale, California. File Photo: AFP
  • Many of today's top companies had unheard names or an inglorious past!

Well-known web search engine company Yahoo! has sold off its core web businesses and what is left has been renamed as Altaba. Verizon is picking up Yahoo's brand name and web assets—search engine, news, Tumblr and Flickr—for $4.8 billion, which may vary in the final deal. Yahoo-owned stakes in Chinese company Alibaba and Yahoo! Japan Corporation (a separate Japanese internet company) will come under the new entity Altaba Inc. The new name is a combination of two words: Alternate and Alibaba.

The sad part of the story is that Yahoo spurned Microsoft's offer of $45 billion in 2008.

Yahoo had already undergone a name change before it became hot. Founded in 1994 by Jerry Yang and David Filo who were students at Stanford, it was originally named ‘Jerry’s Guide to The World Wide Web'. As it grew successful, in 1995, the name was changed to Yahoo, the acronym for ‘Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle.”

Switzerland Davos Forum Yahoo's CEO Marissa Mayer is resigning from the company’s board

Yahoo suffered a value erosion after two consecutive massive data breaches came to light last year. On September 22, a hacker stole personal data of 500 million Yahoo Mail users. Email addresses with passwords and personal details including names, dates of birth and telephone numbers were all taken away. On December 15, Yahoo admitted yet another data theft of one billion users. “We believe an unauthorized third party, in August 2013, stole data associated with more than one billion user accounts,” said an official statement.


Start again

Several companies have benefited with a name change. Tweaking a name brings focus or diversification. Companies usually take new names to create a new identity, to change public perception or to move with the times. It may be for an aesthetic transformation or because the original name limits development. Owners of a company may find a geographical reference in a name no longer suitable if the business outgrows its boundaries. Sometimes a moniker may become too popular that it evolves itself as the company name. Some brand product may grow bigger than the organisation and eventually takes over the company name. A change may help cover up a tarnished image or hide a bad reputation. Even a single incident like a plane crash may necessitate a name change of an airways.

A few companies have lost their original names for reasons beyond their control. Popular Isis chocolates had to change its name to Libeert owing to the emergence of ISIS terrorists. Customers began to disdain Ayds candy when AIDS started scaring people in the 1980s. Even after a change to 'Diet Ayds', the name evoked unspoken dread and the candy went out of business.

Many name changes have taken place on the Internet. Xbox Music, Microsoft's digital music streaming service, changed to Groove Music. Digital video service 'Xbox Video' became 'Microsoft Movies & TV'. Internet Explorer took the name Microsoft Edge. Google changed its Webmaster Tool to Google Search Console.

Here are some of the top corporate brands that emerged from unknown or lesser known names.

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Google << [BackRub]
Larry Page and Sergey Brin ran a search engine, BackRub, for more than a year while they were students at Stanford University. Finally, they renamed and registered the company as Google in 1998.

LG Electronics << [Lucky and GoldStar]
LG Electronics of South Korea began as Lucky, which manufactured cosmetics and plastics. Later it diversified into electronics goods under name GoldStar. In 1995, the company changed its name to LG, which they defined as 'Life's Good'

Blackberry << [Research in Motion]
Canadian multinational Research In Motion Limited (RIM), instituted in March 1984, adopted the name of its most well-known product, Blackberry. The change was announced on January 30, 2013 to be known as 'One Brand One promise' when the company launched Blackberry 10.

Apple << [Apple Computers]
Apple Computers, founded in 1976, announced a name change in 2007, emphasising its diversification into a range of electronic products besides computers. Justifying the dropping of the word 'computer' from the company's name, founder Steve Jobs said only one of their products was a computer.

PepsiCo << [Brad's Drink]
American multinational snack and beverage corporation PepsiCo, Inc. began as Brad's Drink in 1893. It was launched as a soft drink by a pharmacist named Caleb Bradham. After five years, it accepted the name Pepsi-Cola.

Nike << [Blue Ribbon Sports]
Track athlete Phil Knight and his coach Bill Bowerman at the University of Oregon launched Blue Ribbon Sports (BRS) as a distributor for Japanese shoe maker Onitsuka Tiger in 1964. BRS began to use the brand name Nike, the name of the goddess of victory in Greek mythology, in 1971. Nike was registered as the name of the company in 1974.

Sony << [Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo]
A small radio repair shop founded in 1946 as Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo is credited with inventing the world's first transistor television. In 1958, the company became Sony Corporation.

IBM << [Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation]
IBM was founded in 1911 as Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation. In 1924, it was re-branded as International Business Machines.

AOL << [Quantum Computer Services]
Quantum Computer Services founded in 1985, changed its name to America Online in 1991. In April 2006, the name was abbreviated to AOL.

Intel Security << [McAfee]
Intel's acquisition of computer security software McAfee led to its name change. The company was purchased from its founder John McAfee for $8 billion. After he was involved in a murder case, the new owners changed its name to Intel Security.

PayPal << [Confinity]
The company began in 1998 as Palm Pilot payment and cryptography. It was soon named Confinity by combining the words 'Confidence and Infinity'. Invention of a system for making online cash payments led to the name change as PayPal. In July 2002, eBay bought the firm for $1.5 billion.

Logi << [Logitech]
Logitech, Swiss manufacturer of Computer accessories dropped the word tech from its name in July 2015. Though the company's name remains the same, the name on the products is Logi.

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