Pity the poor letter E.
For years, Internet companies have been trying to put it out of business with names like Flickr, Tumblr, Grindr, and Scribd. Now fund managers are jumping on board.
Standard Life Aberdeen, formed in 2017 after Standard Life and Aberdeen Asset Management merged, is changing its name to Abrdn plc, abandoning the alphabet’s fifth letter—and seemingly all common sense.
The new name, which company officials would like you to continue to pronounce the same way you used to, is meant to give the fund manager a more modern profile (even if it looks like something a teen texted to a friend that sent their parents to the Urban Dictionary).
“The new brand identity marks the next stage in the reshaping of the business and future-focused growth strategy,” the company said in an announcement of the change.
The rebranding will begin this summer. A new stock ticker is also in the works and expected to arrive around August. (The company trades on the OTC market in the U.S. and could conceivably change its symbol to ABRDN.)
Given how often companies try to have fun with their name, it is, of course, possible this is a publicity stunt. Those fake rebrandings don’t often go well, though. In recent memory alone, Volkswagen, which pretended to be preparing for a change to Voltswagen to promote its electric vehicles, and IHOP, whose IHOB (International House of Burgers) stunt irked plenty of customers, learned that the hard way.
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