What's in a name?

I’ve blogged before (The Stupid Advertisement Awards) about offensive advertising. News of a forthcoming talk by Trevor Beattie reminds me of a related issue: offensive branding.

Sometimes things change their names for reasons which are unclear. I could imagine a “Marathon” bar might give me the energy to run a marathon. “Snickers” (combining Sneakers and Knickers) merely evokes the sweat that the said activity will generate.

Sometimes the reason is clear enough. A new name is chosen in the hope of escaping the opprobrium attached to the old name. Sellafield and DR Congo spring to mind.

Again, the Royal Mail briefly tried out the name Consignia – an anagram of Gain Coins, highlighting that its priority was no longer to deliver mail but to make money. The Lib Dems have been though various anagrams of LSD. And Beattie, joining in the anagram game, re-branded French Connection as FCUK.

French Connection was (I imagine) named after the film. The worst one can say is that it’s a bit incongruous. (Although better than Scarecrow, if we’re naming clothing chains after Gene Hackman films.) But FCUK is no less incongruous, and a deal nastier.

Taking a rude word and reversing the middle letters isn’t clever or funny. Nor is it original. 1000 years ago, Canute purposely showed his fawning courtiers that he couldn’t control the sea: and they responded by re-branding him as Silly Cnut. (Apologies to the Private Eye cartoonist whose joke I seem to have pinched.)

Anagrams can be fun. Crossword setters have long rejoiced that “schoolmaster” can be found in “the classroom”: although it took the genius of Araucaria to point out that “Manchester City” is an anagram of “synthetic cream”. But pasting anagrams of rude words on the wall is just as puerile as shouting the words themselves.

Trevor Beattie, lest we forget, was the brain (or groin) behind the infamous “Hello Boys” advert. This was the one displaying Eva Herzigova’s cleavage, and inviting us to join Mr Beattie in his schoolboy sniggering. No surprise then that his name is an anagram of “Eva titter bore”.

FCUK? It's a load of carp.