Velleman kits & modules - transition to Whadda brand.

[vidjoman]

Originally Posted by SiriusHardware

For a brief time somewhere around 1979-80-81 there appeared in the small ads of radio and electronics hobby magazines adverts from a company called 'Gailan' offering mainly CB radio spares, which at the time was rather curious because CB radio wasn't legal in the UK until late 1981.

I rang the number given one day, merely out of curiosity, and the call was answered with 'Anglia Components, can I help you...?'

Gailan is an anagram of Anglia.

[Aub]

Originally Posted by David G4EBT

Some forum members might have been around long enough to recall the short-lived attempt by RS to set up a retail arm branded as 'Doram' ('Doorway for amateurs'), and later, 'Electromail', which didn't last long either. Touched on in a previous forum thread some years ago.

https://vintage-radio.net/forum/showthread.php?t=92172

Blimey, I'd forgotten all about that

Aub

[Graham G3ZVT]

Originally Posted by Philips210

It's completely illogical.
I can't see any reason to want to change the business name from an easily recognised and well respected one to that awful one. Brand image, I think not. What were they thinking?

Regards,
Symon

Perhaps they felt they needed a silly name to keep up with the likes of Adafruit.

[SiriusHardware]

Originally Posted by vidjoman

Gailan is an anagram of Anglia.

Yes, I got that

[Bazz4CQJ]

Consignia.

[TonyDuell]

Originally Posted by vidjoman

Gailan is an anagram of Anglia.

And I assume everyone has spotted what 'Agilent' is an anagram of. I am not going to post it publically in case anyone objects.

[Radio Wrangler]

When the name was eventually announced to employees, someone fed it into a little anagram gizmo used by crossword cheats.

It came out with "A Tin Leg" and that got everyone laughing. Then it came out with another anagram and the laughter went up a gear. Everyone forgot about tin legs. Someone edited the 'Spark' logo into something more in-keeping with the anagram.

There was a lot of gallows humour. We'd just lost a name we'd been very proud of.

David

[Herald1360]

Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler

When the name was eventually announced to employees, someone fed it into a little anagram gizmo used by crossword cheats.

....

David

Just BTDT

[Aub]

Of course there's now Evri, who were Hermes.

Aub

[fetteler]

Originally Posted by TonyDuell

And I assume everyone has spotted what 'Agilent' is an anagram of. I am not going to post it publically in case anyone objects.

Well I'm not so inhibited: the word in question is genital. Nothing to be hung up about and funny in its own right

Steve.

[Radio Wrangler]

While there are some fine and helpful members of the accountancy profession, I do tend to use the name "Bean counters" for the other sort - it got used by someone several posts ago. But when things have really gone pear shaped, the lawyers get wheeled in and I coined the term "Blame adjusters" They don't really change what has happened, they are just brought in to move the blame around afterwards. Feel free to use it.

David

[Aub]

A bit like loss adjusters in insurance companies

Aub

[ms660]

The change to Whadda seems to be attracting lots of attention, looks like mission accomplished for the marketing dept.

Lawrence.

[stevehertz]

Originally Posted by ms660

The change to Whadda seems to be attracting lots of attention, looks like mission accomplished for the marketing dept.

Lawrence.

You're not wrong there Loz, good point, well made. Personally, from the limited information that's on here, there does NOT seem to be a good reason to have changed the brand name in this instance. But as I say in an earlier post, there are many instances when a brand name needs to, or it's beneficial for it to be changed. Stuff like this is often scoffed at by pure technical people who seem to forget that just like in electronics, you can get a masters degree in marketing and marketing communications. It's not a subject that you can 'wing' or simply have a view on, you need to be educated on the many facets and aspects that influence peoples' decision making. But because it's less 'techy', it's often seen as something that 'any clever person' can make judgement calls on. Similarly, when a company is taken over, there's always a moan and groan about how "the accountants" have done this or that that is terribly wrong. But it's not just "accountants"! they know little or nothing about marketing, and it's very likely those (marketing) people who will make judgment calls about the viability of operations, alternatives etc etc. At the end of the day it's about money, and like it or not people will make decisions regarding what to do with their assets. I totally get that workforces are against closures, redundancies etc etc, but that's life. I have to say, when I was made redundant after 20 years service with Thorn, I never 'blamed' the company, they have to make decisions that get them through bad patches for the general good of everyone at the company. In my case it was probably the best kick up the backside that I ever had, I'd have probably still been there now earning '£12k'. As it is I went on to better things, using my electronics skills to get into the electronics marcoms field and climb the ladder there.

[G6Tanuki]

Marketing mission accomplished. There's no such thing as bad publicity.

I always liked my marketing/accountancy team; though they occasionally screwed-up [like selling a service to a number of high-profile clients without realisiung that we didn't _actually_ have the ability to provide that service - fixed by me arranging to buy it in from someone else, we still turned a profit on the game] and I always trusted my 'bean-counters' to tell me if the number of beans-in-the-jar were getting low. It kinda helped that Bernie, our accountant, was also a partner in the business so if it crashed he'd lose his investment too.

"Delighting the Customer" is all very well but if you didn't delight the partners/ibvestors in the business by delivering decent profits you wouldn't last long.

I remember a comment reported in one of the Mullard/Philips board-meetings from the mid-1930s where one of the Philips team had to rather forcefully remind the Mullard side "We're not here to make valves, we're here to make profits".

[Maarten]

There's no such thing as bad publicity, but publicity is not the only aspect of a change in a company. If it would result in for example loss of profits, or pissing off retailers, for example, that could be a problem.

[Lloyd 1985]

The company I work for currently have a habit of changing their name… it’s become a bit of a joke now, every time we have a quarterly meeting someone has to ask what the company is called this time! It’s got to be a dumb idea if most of the employees don’t even know what the company is called any more…

Regards
Lloyd

[Radio Wrangler]

Originally Posted by Maarten

There's no such thing as bad publicity,

As you said, there are exceptions, but those exceptions can be very dramatic. Also, at the time of the publicity, who can predict which way it'll go?

We have a prime example in the UK. A remark by the head of a family business bearing his surname made some remarks in an interview, and it destroyed a nationwide chain of jewellery shops.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Ratner

The shops sold a wide range of products including good stuff and were a trusted retailer, they also sold cheap stuff, so it wasn't simply the fall of a tat business.

As a comedian put it, the business fell so fast the impact crater could be seen from space.

David

[kalee20]

And rival brand F Hind creamed off the trade lost by Ratners, which was ironic because he owned them both I believe!

It's not just down to corporate brands - remember Windscale => Sellafield?

[radio69]

I've noticed that the main ITV channel (channel 3) seems to be in the process of re-branding itself as 'ITV1' - again !!

They re-branded this channel as 'ITV1' about 10-15 years' ago, and then reverted back to just 'ITV'.

History repeating itself, pointless madness !!