The British asset management firm announced the change to Abrdn in 2021. ·Iain Masterton
The vowels are back. British asset management firm Abrdn (ABDN.L) announced this week that it is reinstating the Es in its name four years after it removed them in a rebranding exercise dubbed an “act of corporate insanity”.
It is the latest in a series of well-known companies that changed their historic names only to U-turn and reinstate the original name following outrage and derision from customers and the media.
Royal Mail (IDS.L), the postal service established by King Henry VIII in 1516, ditched its name for Consignia in 2001 only to reverse the decision just 16 months later.
In 1985, Coca-Cola (KO) changed not only one of the world’s most recognisable brand names but also its top secret recipe. New Coke — which had been brought in in response to the launch of upstart Pepsi (PEP) — lasted less than three months before it reverted to the old recipe and renamed the drink “Coca-Cola Classic”.
Auditor PwC thought it had hit on something when it rebranded its consultancy arm Monday — on Monday 10 June 2002. By the end of July the same year Monday was dead.
Given such high profile failures, why did Abrdn — or aberdeen (note the now lowercase A) — make the change in the first place, and why did it relent and change it back?
Yahoo Finance UK spoke to some of the UK’s top branding experts to find out.
“It’s such a high stakes game, it’s hard to understand why they [companies] do it,” says brand and marketing expert Mark Borkowski. “When it goes wrong it can go spectacularly wrong. It becomes such a story it overtakes the company’s actual story and can easily turn into a nightmare.
“They [company directors] often forget — or overlook — that people have really strong emotional connections to brands, and they don’t like to see them messed with.”
Borkowski says the reasoning behind a rebranding is usually a desire to “refresh, something that they think is tired and dated”.
“They are often jealous of competitors and think that changing a historic brand will help them resonate better with younger customers.”
Kentucky Fried Chicken rebranded in 1991 to KFC because it could remove a bad word — ‘fried’. ·Prapat Aowsakorn via Getty Images
When Aberdeen, which had previously been known as Aberdeen Standard Life and dates back to 1825, announced the change to Abrdn (ABDN.L) in 2021 then-chief executive Stephen Bird said the new name showed a “clarity of focus” and reflected a “modern, agile, digitally enabled brand”.
Critics warned it was confusing and difficult to pronounce. Some even joked that the company had "irritable vowel syndrome", while others speculated if it was trying to connect with younger people by aping YouTuber and Strictly Come Dancing star Harvey Cantwell who goes by Hrvy.
A poll of investors using comparison website Investing Reviews described Abrdn’s name change as an “act of corporate insanity” and voted the company the worst investment brand in the UK.
For years Aberdeen, which had paid brand consultancy Wolf Ollins £1.5m to advise it on the rebrand, repeatedly refused to reinstate the Es. The company’s chief investment officer Peter Branner even accused the media of “corporate bullying” for repeatedly “hammering the missing vowels in our name”.
“Would you do that with an individual?” he said in an interview with Financial News in 2024. “How would you look at a person who makes fun of your name day in, day out? It’s probably not ethical to do it. But apparently with companies it is different.”
That led to the Financial Times to respond with an article headlined "Lv Abrdn aln" and City AM to splash its front page with "Abrdn: an apology — sry we kp tkng th pss ot of yr mssng vwls".
However, on Tuesday, Aberdeen’s new chief executive Jason Windsor said changing the name back was a “pragmatic decision” to remove “distractions”.
“This is a group to be proud of, with a promising future. We will deliver by looking forward with confidence and removing distractions,” he said as the company announced it had an annual profit before tax of £251m from a loss of £6m in 2023.
The company pointed out that this time round it had not hired brand consultants to advise on switching its name back to Aberdeen, and said it expected the cost of changing logos and branding would be “negligible”.
Patrick Barwise, emeritus professor of management and marketing at the London Business School, says companies are often persuaded to change their names by slick brand consultants.
In 1985, Coca-Cola's re-brand to New Coke lasted less than three months. Above, Italian singer Mahmood at the 75th Sanremo Music Festival 2025 at Casa Coca-Cola in Sanremo, Italy. ·Stefano Guidi via Getty Images
“The board gets it in their heads that their brand is a bit fuddy-duddy, and they get in brand consultants to advise them,” he says. “The danger is they get rather blown away by the consultant’s confidence and don’t want to admit that they don't know what the consultants are talking about.”
The most important thing when thinking about a brand change, Barwise says, is to do comprehensive market research.
“A rebrand is a really hard thing to test, but you need to get an idea of how it’s going to go down with customers. I suspect not nearly enough was done here.”
Dr Omar Merlo, associate professor of marketing strategy at Imperial College Business School, warns that companies often overlook how valuable their current brand is. “These companies have built up brand equity, and consumer trust over decades, but can destroy it overnight,” he says.
“It’s particularly important in financial services as trust and reliability are so important. You’re killing [that trust] the minute you rebrand. You really have to have a good reason for giving it up.”
Merlo says there are only four good reasons. “One: The company is making a big strategic shift, such as Facebook turning to Meta (META). It got a lot of criticism at the time, but it came with a whole change in direction and people got used to the name.
“Two: You have a brand in crisis. For example, Kentucky Fried Chicken, rebranded [in 1991] to KFC because it could remove a bad word — ‘fried’.
“Third is when there are mergers and acquisitions or other structural changes that mean the company is significantly different to what went before."
The fourth reason, he says, is when it’s “led by the customers”.
“FedEx (FDX) changed its name from Federal Express because that was how consumers were referring to it.”
Sarah Montano, professor of retail marketing at the University of Birmingham Business School, says companies underestimate the amount of emotion that the public have invested in brands.
“Companies think people want something shiny and new, but actually they can often be very attached to the familiar,” she says. “With Royal Mail, everyone knew what it was and it had a huge brand presence and trust. Consignia meant nothing to no one.”
“Brands have personalities,” Montano says. “With one word or one logo you trust them. If there was no brand, would we step on a plane and fly to 36,000ft?”
