Carphone Warehouse was founded in 1989 and now has some 2,400 shops in the UK and Europe. It’s a pretty well-known brand name but it doesn’t sell car ‘phones and has shops not warehouses. There is a lesson here for, perhaps – only perhaps – well-intentioned, folk who want to screw-up a recognisable brand name by changing it.
Fulham Opera have retained their name but changed their logo – a waste of scarce funds. When the International Petroleum Exchange needed a logo when it set up shop in 1981, an impoverished graphic designer obliged for a very small fee. When ICE (Intercontinental Exchange) bought IPE they commissioned a new and bland logo. (They then forgot to register it as a trademark.) Anyway, most brands stick to their knitting and adopt the Carphone Warehouse model.
Now, of an evening, I’m wont to sit down and sip a G&T with a snack-size packet of Jacob’s Mini Cheddars. They are like Carphone Warehouse. They have introduced two new varieties: Red Leicester and Stilton but they retain the Mini Cheddar brand name. By the way the Red Leicester is not much different to Cheddar but the Stilton is scrummy.
I think this inability to understand Carphone Warehouse springs from a combination of new management who want to make a visible difference and PR people who want to earn a handsome fee. I am pleased to report that The Benevolent Society of St Patrick (with which I have a connection) have retained their original logo from 1783. It’s not very fashionable these days but it may come back into fashion in another 250 years.
If you are a regular reader you will know that I have confidence in old investment trusts (that have not changed their names) and you will know my favourites. Here is a list of those that have stuck to their knitting for more than a century.
It makes interesting reading because many of them, at least in the last 25 years, have not done well versus FTSE. My favourites, Scottish Mortgage and Murray International (the former for growth, the later for income) look good as does Merchants, for income. But you need to keep an eye on the fund managers if you want to beat the index.
https://youtu.be/3QQbvctkQAA
WPP, under the direction of Sir Martin Sorrell, is the world’s largest advertising and PR group. They reap eye-watering sums of money from routinely advising brands to rename, re-position and re-logo themselves.
Do they take their own advice?
Not really. WPP stands for ‘Wire and Plastic Products’, and was bought as a conveniently moribund listed company by Sorrell in 1985. He used it as a vehicle to launch an empire that now includes JWT, Grey Group, Ogilvy & Mather, Young & Rubicam, Landor Associates, Burson-Marsteller, Hill & Knowlton, Fitch, and Cohn & Wolfe – all hugely enthusiastic evangelists for the need to spend millions creating new logos and names.
I didn’t know about the origins of WPP. I read that Sir Martin was paid £48.1 million last year.