Happy Monday
In a quite spectacular feat of fumbled communications, PwC Consulting has kindasorta announced their imminent rebranding as “Monday”.
(Yes, that’s right – “Monday”. They’re calling themselves “Monday”.)
I can only call it a kindasorta announcement for a couple of reasons:
1. They’re not announcing it as a fait accompli – the nastily-worded news release is full of future subjunctive “watch this space” stuff: “Monday will be its new name...” “...it will have meaning and stand for something”.
Great example of the half pregnant launch.
2. Hardly anyone has noticed. This thing has had minimal pickup, hardly registering on radar at all with most of the major dailies and news networks.
Not too surprising, of course. They slipped the release out at 9:00 on Sunday morning. Presumably hoping to springboard off the whole cutesy symmetry thing – trying to get coverage of “Monday” in all the Monday editions.
Didn’t work, of course. Duh-uh. Tiny piece in the WSJ – square root of bugger all anywhere else.
Who the hell is going to pick up such a soft news item for the business pages on a Monday? How many of the business and marketing journalists they’d want to cover this thing are likely to be receptive to a pitch on a Sunday afternoon?
Sheesh. They’re rumoured to be spending more than US$100 million on this. $100 million to follow in the footsteps of Accenture, Zenica, Consignia and numerous other ugly, unnecessary, reputation-squandering rebranding exercises.
Surely $100 million could have bought them some half decent PR advice? Like, er, don’t bother issuing your news release at 9 a.m. on a Sunday morning, for example.
The announcement quotes their CEO saying: “Our new name -- Monday -- is exactly what we want it to be as we create our new business: a real word.”
Indeed. Unfortunately, they’re arrogantly ignoring the fact that it’s a real word with a really unambiguous meaning and resonance for billions of English-speakers worldwide. It means Monday.
The release says: “it will have meaning and stand for something: real people, real experience, real business…and that means real results.”
No...it means Monday. The word Monday means Monday. This is this.
The ads running in support of the launch tell us it means “fresh thinking, doughnuts, hot coffee.”
Monday. It. Means. Monday. Start of the working week. Monday.
Co-opting such a common word leads to some really uncomfortable sentence construction. The WSJ, for example, says: “PwC Consulting will change its name to Monday when it completes its separation from accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP”.
Had to read that twice before I figured out that the “to” was clearly a typo. Surely, I thought, it should be: “PwC Consulting will change its name Monday when...”
But no. They really are doing this ghastly thing. Changing their name to Monday.
So if they’re now going to own the day formerly known as Monday, maybe Monday itself needs to rebrand. Perhaps it’s time to overturn the Emperor Constantine’s fine work and rename Monday to something else.
“PwCday” is one option, but doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. “Pwuckday” – ugh.
Hmm.... well, they are a consulting firm, aren’t they? So if they’re stealing the meaning of our week day, let’s steal some of their meaning in return.
Henceforth and forthwith, I propose that the first day of the working week should be known as “Consultingday”. Or, to make it even easier: “Conday”
Next up: Spades Rebranded -- calling a shovel a shovel.
In a quite spectacular feat of fumbled communications, PwC Consulting has kindasorta announced their imminent rebranding as “Monday”.
(Yes, that’s right – “Monday”. They’re calling themselves “Monday”.)
I can only call it a kindasorta announcement for a couple of reasons:
1. They’re not announcing it as a fait accompli – the nastily-worded news release is full of future subjunctive “watch this space” stuff: “Monday will be its new name...” “...it will have meaning and stand for something”.
Great example of the half pregnant launch.
2. Hardly anyone has noticed. This thing has had minimal pickup, hardly registering on radar at all with most of the major dailies and news networks.
Not too surprising, of course. They slipped the release out at 9:00 on Sunday morning. Presumably hoping to springboard off the whole cutesy symmetry thing – trying to get coverage of “Monday” in all the Monday editions.
Didn’t work, of course. Duh-uh. Tiny piece in the WSJ – square root of bugger all anywhere else.
Who the hell is going to pick up such a soft news item for the business pages on a Monday? How many of the business and marketing journalists they’d want to cover this thing are likely to be receptive to a pitch on a Sunday afternoon?
Sheesh. They’re rumoured to be spending more than US$100 million on this. $100 million to follow in the footsteps of Accenture, Zenica, Consignia and numerous other ugly, unnecessary, reputation-squandering rebranding exercises.
Surely $100 million could have bought them some half decent PR advice? Like, er, don’t bother issuing your news release at 9 a.m. on a Sunday morning, for example.
The announcement quotes their CEO saying: “Our new name -- Monday -- is exactly what we want it to be as we create our new business: a real word.”
Indeed. Unfortunately, they’re arrogantly ignoring the fact that it’s a real word with a really unambiguous meaning and resonance for billions of English-speakers worldwide. It means Monday.
The release says: “it will have meaning and stand for something: real people, real experience, real business…and that means real results.”
No...it means Monday. The word Monday means Monday. This is this.
The ads running in support of the launch tell us it means “fresh thinking, doughnuts, hot coffee.”
Monday. It. Means. Monday. Start of the working week. Monday.
Co-opting such a common word leads to some really uncomfortable sentence construction. The WSJ, for example, says: “PwC Consulting will change its name to Monday when it completes its separation from accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP”.
Had to read that twice before I figured out that the “to” was clearly a typo. Surely, I thought, it should be: “PwC Consulting will change its name Monday when...”
But no. They really are doing this ghastly thing. Changing their name to Monday.
So if they’re now going to own the day formerly known as Monday, maybe Monday itself needs to rebrand. Perhaps it’s time to overturn the Emperor Constantine’s fine work and rename Monday to something else.
“PwCday” is one option, but doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. “Pwuckday” – ugh.
Hmm.... well, they are a consulting firm, aren’t they? So if they’re stealing the meaning of our week day, let’s steal some of their meaning in return.
Henceforth and forthwith, I propose that the first day of the working week should be known as “Consultingday”. Or, to make it even easier: “Conday”
Next up: Spades Rebranded -- calling a shovel a shovel.
