Humor

On dangers of (re)naming

By Anastasia ⋅ July 8, 2007 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

When I worked in business, I had a client who picked a new name after a merger. The name meant something rather obscene in Portuguese, but, despite relying on Brazilian revenues, the company had already invested too much money in the new brand name by the time the snafu was discovered to turn back. Luckily, not so Mr. Blair:

In Tony Blair’s reshuffle of May 2005, the Department of Trade and Industry was to be re-branded as the Department for Productivity, Energy and Industry - before someone pointed out what the acronym Productivity, ENergy and Industry Secretary spelt.

One of Gordon Brown’s first acts as Prime Minister was to rejig the DTI, giving it the new name: the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform - or DBERR for short. Again, the name change has caused problems - although not for reasons of prurience this time. […]

“Many computers recognise the letters as code for ‘database error’ and a huge amount of confusion is being caused.”

Via.