stupid names

So there was this big expensive campaign on tv recently - where Alice Cooper, Ringo and some others were going about their lives pronouncing how they wouldn't be so internationally famous now if they'd stuck to their original humdrum names... so because of that the staidly named Norwich Union is to rebrand it's self as 'Aviva'. Or something like that.

Oh.

But Aviva is a made-up nonsense name - and it means nothing to anyone. (Not to mention that it sounds more like a brand of bottled spring water.) It won't mean anything until it's acquired one over time. So, so far it's only connection with anything is with the recent trend for big companies to want to call themselves by nonsense made up names. Oh and btw trying to make a link between the name of a corporation and a celebrity - no, that doesn't work. A person working in show business is not the same as a company. And surely since insurance is a boring business - then it's perfectly fine for an insurance company to have a boring name. Plus I'd like to know how much money Norwich Union spent on those flashy adverts - after all shouldn't that money have been better deployed giving it's costumers better deals? Mmmmmm?

Moreover rebrands are usually a massive waste of time, cost staggeringly huge amounts of money and frequently end up being confusing for customers - for example witness the debacle of the Post Office wanting to call it's 'Consignia' - wtf?

I'm mentioning all this because Nokia* have launched a web based user generated content sharing site called Ovi. But what the hell is an 'Ovi'? To me it sounds more like Ovum - a egg. So what on Earth have eggs got to do with mobile phones and the internets and sharing photos and movies etc.? I'm confused already. Oh well, at least it's only three letters long and should be easy enough to remember. But it has prompted me to notice the tide of nonsensically named companies that there are now.


[*Nokia, now this is a good no-nonsense nonsense name - it's just the name of a Finnish town.]