Monday:
Still not much attention, other than some rattling of the blogwires, for this spectacular piece of PwC tomfoolery.
Their rebranding announcement was so badly flubbed, perhaps I shouldn't be too surprised to see how little attention it's received. Yet I find it strange that there's been such a shocking lack of scorn and derision heaped on this one. Where have all the cynics gone?
“Monday, a day like no other
Monday, was their last day”
The Living End - Monday
Some entertaining comments running on Plastic, including one wag who suggested: "I think they should have gone with something more pleasant, like "Migraine", or "Projectile Vomitting".
“Every other day (every other day)
Every other day of the week is fine... yeah
But whenever Monday comes...”
The Momas & The Papas - Monday Monday
There’s just so much stupidity to pick on in this.
For example, the caption they’ve thoughtfully supplied to accompany the grinning idiot face-like-a-smacked-arse CEO photo opp on their website, is a tasty 29 words long. 29 words for a mere caption seems a heckuva lot.
But worse than this is the fact that the caption is supplied as a 22KB PDF with 104 words of completely superfluous other crap, including the redundant but inevitable corporate boilerplate. That’s a noise to signal ratio of more than 3:1
How many people are really going to feel rewarded after opening up this hefty file, to find out that the useful content is approximately zero.
[On which note – opening a non-PwC related bracket here for a second – does anyone really think this practice of posting news releases online as PDFs is a remotely good idea? It seems to be an increasingly popular approach, but not one I can make any kind of sense out of.
Anything that makes your news harder to access and harder to read should be considered a dumb move, right?
I love Acrobat – it’s a terrific invention, a fine product, beautifully implemented. But that doesn’t mean it should be used for everything.
The whole point of a news release, presumably, is that you want people to find and read it – right? Locking every news release inside a PDF file makes the information less useable, less accessible and less easy to find. If there’s any good reason for forcing interested media and other audiences to jump through hoops just to read your news, I’m missing it.
Let’s look at the search box on PwC’s site, for example. On April 10th of this year, PwC announced a brand new solution for the insurance industry christened the “iFS Solution”. If you’re in the insurance business, it would be reasonable for PwC’s sales people to expect you might be interested in this thing.
Unfortunately, the only information available about the iFS Solution on the PwC website is embedded in the original news release.
You’re a big insurance company CIO. Someone’s told you about iFS. Sounds cool. You got to the PwC web site and search for “iFS Solution”. You won’t find dick.
Reason – it’s buried in a PDF. (Google, of course, can and has indexed the PDF – so you can still find the info in other ways, but that’s not the point).
Wottabunchofarse.]
Ahem. Where was I?
“Tortured winds that blew me over
When I start to think that I'm something special
They tell me that I'm not
And they're right and I'm glad and I'm not”
The Jam - Monday
Oh yes, Monday. There's all this crap in PwC's positioning statements about how "it's a real word." You can almost hear the implied "at least" in that statement. "At least it's a real word, not like Accenture". Well, yeah. But then that doesn't make it any less stupid. Bollocks is a real word too - but you wouldn't rebrand your company that, would you? Actually, that's not such a bad idea...
“Oh Monday morning, the cracks become quite clear”
The Church - Monday Morning
The creative for this whole thing really sucks bums too. It's evident they're trying hard to look like a Microsoft ad campaign, for some unaccountable reason. But some of the attempts at punchy zesty copy end up just bloody silly.
For example: "SHARPEN YOUR PENCIL. IRON YOUR CRISPY WHITE SHIRTS" Er... Laundered and starched white shirts could indeed be crisp - but "crispy"?! Carr’s water biscuits are crispy. Doughnuts might be krispy. White shirts should be crisp.
There’s some good commentary from James M. Capozzola of the Rittenhouse Review (justly famous for having the longest list o’ links in the known universe).
Although I find myself taking exception to one particular point of snark in his excellent analysis. He ends his commentary with this entertaining little snippet:
PwC Consulting spokeswoman Sehra Eusufzai could not comment on how the company came up with “Monday,” CNNfn reports. “Our brand positioning indicates real people, real business and real experience,” Eusufzai told the cable news network. “That's a central part of what we see this name standing for. Secondly [sic], with any new name introduction, there's bound to be a wide range of reactions, and over time it will come to mean what people want it to mean.”
But then goes on to say:
Oh, we get it now. Let the customer decide what the firm stands for. That’s one helluva way to run a business.
Well, actually – yes it is. In fact, if you think you can run a business any other way you need your noggin twisted. The PwC spokesperson is clearly unprepared, clearly inadequate – but of course the customer’s going to figure out what they think the firm’s new name stands for. That’s the way this stuff works. Throwing $110 million at Wolff Olins to rebrand your company gets you a new name and a new look. But people will still figure out for themselves what they think of you.
You can and should work hard to influence it, but “Positioning” is something you receive, not something you achieve. Corporate reputation – the public perception of what the company stands for – is a gift. It’s something the market will give to you in return for the way you behave. Act like Enron, you’ll be treated like Enron. It was ever thus.
“And I still find it so hard
To say what I need to say”
New Order - Blue Monday
BTW, a few observant punters have kindly pointed out that the actual trademarked name being adopted is “Monday:”
That is - Monday Colon.
Hmm... "Monday Colon". Sounds like the condition you'd suffer after a heavy ale and curry weekend.
Monday Colon – the bumpipe of the global consulting world.
Monday Colon – a crappy start to your week.
"Now, now that you're free, what are you going to be?
And who are you going to see?
And where, where will you go and how will you know
You didn't get it all wrong?
Is this the light of a new day dawning?
A future bright that you can walk in?
No it's just another Monday morning."
Pulp - Monday Morning
Still not much attention, other than some rattling of the blogwires, for this spectacular piece of PwC tomfoolery.
Their rebranding announcement was so badly flubbed, perhaps I shouldn't be too surprised to see how little attention it's received. Yet I find it strange that there's been such a shocking lack of scorn and derision heaped on this one. Where have all the cynics gone?
“Monday, a day like no other
Monday, was their last day”
The Living End - Monday
Some entertaining comments running on Plastic, including one wag who suggested: "I think they should have gone with something more pleasant, like "Migraine", or "Projectile Vomitting".
“Every other day (every other day)
Every other day of the week is fine... yeah
But whenever Monday comes...”
The Momas & The Papas - Monday Monday
There’s just so much stupidity to pick on in this.
For example, the caption they’ve thoughtfully supplied to accompany the grinning idiot face-like-a-smacked-arse CEO photo opp on their website, is a tasty 29 words long. 29 words for a mere caption seems a heckuva lot.
But worse than this is the fact that the caption is supplied as a 22KB PDF with 104 words of completely superfluous other crap, including the redundant but inevitable corporate boilerplate. That’s a noise to signal ratio of more than 3:1
How many people are really going to feel rewarded after opening up this hefty file, to find out that the useful content is approximately zero.
[On which note – opening a non-PwC related bracket here for a second – does anyone really think this practice of posting news releases online as PDFs is a remotely good idea? It seems to be an increasingly popular approach, but not one I can make any kind of sense out of.
Anything that makes your news harder to access and harder to read should be considered a dumb move, right?
I love Acrobat – it’s a terrific invention, a fine product, beautifully implemented. But that doesn’t mean it should be used for everything.
The whole point of a news release, presumably, is that you want people to find and read it – right? Locking every news release inside a PDF file makes the information less useable, less accessible and less easy to find. If there’s any good reason for forcing interested media and other audiences to jump through hoops just to read your news, I’m missing it.
Let’s look at the search box on PwC’s site, for example. On April 10th of this year, PwC announced a brand new solution for the insurance industry christened the “iFS Solution”. If you’re in the insurance business, it would be reasonable for PwC’s sales people to expect you might be interested in this thing.
Unfortunately, the only information available about the iFS Solution on the PwC website is embedded in the original news release.
You’re a big insurance company CIO. Someone’s told you about iFS. Sounds cool. You got to the PwC web site and search for “iFS Solution”. You won’t find dick.
Reason – it’s buried in a PDF. (Google, of course, can and has indexed the PDF – so you can still find the info in other ways, but that’s not the point).
Wottabunchofarse.]
Ahem. Where was I?
“Tortured winds that blew me over
When I start to think that I'm something special
They tell me that I'm not
And they're right and I'm glad and I'm not”
The Jam - Monday
Oh yes, Monday. There's all this crap in PwC's positioning statements about how "it's a real word." You can almost hear the implied "at least" in that statement. "At least it's a real word, not like Accenture". Well, yeah. But then that doesn't make it any less stupid. Bollocks is a real word too - but you wouldn't rebrand your company that, would you? Actually, that's not such a bad idea...
“Oh Monday morning, the cracks become quite clear”
The Church - Monday Morning
The creative for this whole thing really sucks bums too. It's evident they're trying hard to look like a Microsoft ad campaign, for some unaccountable reason. But some of the attempts at punchy zesty copy end up just bloody silly.
For example: "SHARPEN YOUR PENCIL. IRON YOUR CRISPY WHITE SHIRTS" Er... Laundered and starched white shirts could indeed be crisp - but "crispy"?! Carr’s water biscuits are crispy. Doughnuts might be krispy. White shirts should be crisp.
There’s some good commentary from James M. Capozzola of the Rittenhouse Review (justly famous for having the longest list o’ links in the known universe).
Although I find myself taking exception to one particular point of snark in his excellent analysis. He ends his commentary with this entertaining little snippet:
PwC Consulting spokeswoman Sehra Eusufzai could not comment on how the company came up with “Monday,” CNNfn reports. “Our brand positioning indicates real people, real business and real experience,” Eusufzai told the cable news network. “That's a central part of what we see this name standing for. Secondly [sic], with any new name introduction, there's bound to be a wide range of reactions, and over time it will come to mean what people want it to mean.”
But then goes on to say:
Oh, we get it now. Let the customer decide what the firm stands for. That’s one helluva way to run a business.
Well, actually – yes it is. In fact, if you think you can run a business any other way you need your noggin twisted. The PwC spokesperson is clearly unprepared, clearly inadequate – but of course the customer’s going to figure out what they think the firm’s new name stands for. That’s the way this stuff works. Throwing $110 million at Wolff Olins to rebrand your company gets you a new name and a new look. But people will still figure out for themselves what they think of you.
You can and should work hard to influence it, but “Positioning” is something you receive, not something you achieve. Corporate reputation – the public perception of what the company stands for – is a gift. It’s something the market will give to you in return for the way you behave. Act like Enron, you’ll be treated like Enron. It was ever thus.
“And I still find it so hard
To say what I need to say”
New Order - Blue Monday
BTW, a few observant punters have kindly pointed out that the actual trademarked name being adopted is “Monday:”
That is - Monday Colon.
Hmm... "Monday Colon". Sounds like the condition you'd suffer after a heavy ale and curry weekend.
Monday Colon – the bumpipe of the global consulting world.
Monday Colon – a crappy start to your week.
"Now, now that you're free, what are you going to be?
And who are you going to see?
And where, where will you go and how will you know
You didn't get it all wrong?
Is this the light of a new day dawning?
A future bright that you can walk in?
No it's just another Monday morning."
Pulp - Monday Morning
