Why Vowels Matter
Rebranding lessons from Standard Life Aberdeen
Here’s a classic anxiety dream: the day of the big launch. You’re nervous, but everything is going fine so far, and you’ve managed not to spill coffee on your clothes. As you step up to the podium, there's a buzz of anticipation, and all attention turns to you. It’s your big moment. You look down at your notes, and a shock of horror runs down your spine. Here you are, standing in front of everybody, and you’ve forgotten to bring any vowels.
I refer to the rebranding of Standard Life Aberdeen, which recently prompted a round of internet mockery for announcing the new name Abrdn. CEO Stephen Whitehead says they were after “a bold move to stand out”, and on that front it was mission accomplished – though perhaps not in the way he intended.
For a start, there’s the problem of pronouncing the new name. You’re supposed to say Aberdeen still, but you need to be told that. (And pronouncing it that way undermines the firm’s intention to move away from associations with the city.) If you were encountering it for the first time, Abrdn is probably going to read like ‘a burden’, which is what their rebrand may prove to be.
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The real mystery is why a company just shy of its 200th birthday would want to look like a tech start-up. Why risk raising connotations of hype and internet stock bubbles?
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Then there’s the mystery of the missing vowels. The reference points are obvious enough: Abrdn evokes the buzz of Flickr, Scribd or Tumblr, suggesting a new approach for a digital age, albeit one that dates to the noughties. The real mystery is why a company just shy of its 200th birthday would want to look like a tech start-up. Why risk raising connotations of hype and internet stock bubbles? And surely somebody must have seen that when an investment bank tries this kind of novelty spelling, it risks looking like a middle-aged dad trying to dance the Floss.
So how can companies avoid a rebrand backlash? Three suggestions:
BE OPEN
To begin with you want to test your assumptions. The agency in question was appointed to the Abrdn rebrand with the name already chosen, which would have rung alarm bells for me, as I’m sure it did for them too. Agencies need the freedom to challenge the creative brief where necessary. Make use of their deep expertise. Take on feedback. Be prepared to kill your darlings. Consult stakeholders early and don’t catch them by surprise, like Everton FC did with their ill-fated in-house re-design of the treasured club crest.
BE REAL
Secondly, launch your brand with authenticity. If Abrdn’s launch video hadn’t declared ‘a new era’, suggested that ‘together we can create more understanding’, or claimed to be ‘shaping a better economy and a better world’, people might have been slower to mock it. Everyone wants to make a splash, but you also want to be honest and realistic about what a rebrand can and can’t do. If a rebrand comes across as over-claiming, it can backfire by drawing attention to past mistakes or underperformance.
BE CLEAR
Finally, be crystal clear about what the change achieves and why. People lost their minds when Consignia was launched in 2001, largely because it was misunderstood as a rebrand of Royal Mail. In reality, Consignia was an international umbrella identity that need not have troubled the red vans and pillar boxes that feel so much a part of the British landscape. There was no such scorn when Google became a subsidiary of Alphabet or British Gas created the overarching Centrica – both equally meaningless and generic corporate entities.
Obviously, those aren’t as cherished or politicised as the Royal Mail, but I can’t help thinking there would have been far less trouble if the change had been explained more clearly.
You can never entirely control the way a rebrand is received. But by being open, real and clear, you can minimise the risk of your rebrand becoming a nightmare.
