What Major Company Just Changed Their Name

Michael B. Sauter and Samuel Stebbins

For the nation's largest companies, a highly-recognizable name can be an extremely valuable asset. However in the face of a public relations disaster, declining revenue, or major changes in consumer preference, a high-contour brand proper name tin can get a liability. In these cases, rebranding with a new proper noun can be necessary to turn corporate fortunes around.

24/vii Wall St. reviewed xv of the biggest corporate proper noun changes in recent history. This list focuses on proper name changes that were responses to urgent financial or public relations problems. Some of these companies may not exist effectually today had they not rebranded. Hither is a expect at the brands that will disappear in 2020.

Some of these companies changed their brands to more effectively represent their range of products and services. For case, Weight Watchers changed its name in 2018 to WW to amend communicate that the visitor offers a wider assortment of wellness products than just weight loss assist.

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In other cases, a company's brand had been and so tarnished by scandal or associated with an industry held in increasingly poor regard that the proper name had to get. The Lance Armstrong Foundation changed its name to Livestrong Foundation subsequently the company founder and namesake was outed for utilize of operation-enhancing drugs.

In other instances, long-term business failure or changing cultural values led to a name change for these companies. But often, a single incident and the resulting fallout was plenty to precipitate a name change for these companies. These are the biggest corporate scandals of the last decade.

In a few rare cases, the proper noun changes were not made from a fiscal or public relations perspective, but a legal one. I well-known entertainment company on this list was forced to change its name due to a trademark violation.

1. Livestrong Foundation

•Former proper noun: Lance Armstrong Foundation

•Year inverse: 2012

The Lance Armstrong Foundation began in 1997 -- in the wake of Lance Armstrong's testicular cancer diagnosis -- as a charity to raise money for cancer enquiry. Notwithstanding, after years of speculation and investigations, information technology became indisputable in August 2012 that the 7 time Bout de France champion had been illegally using performance-enhancing drugs throughout his professional person career. In the fallout, Armstrong was stripped of his titles and banned from professional person cycling. Armstrong's clemency foundation formally changed its name to the Livestrong Foundation in a rebranding try.

ii. American Outdoor Brands Corporation

•Sometime proper name: Smith & Wesson

•Year changed: 2017

Smith & Wesson Belongings, the parent visitor of the Smith & Wesson firearm brand, changed its name to American Outdoor Brands on Jan. one, 2017. The modify was probable fabricated primarily in response to the volatility of the firearms market.

Gun sales tin can fluctuate considerably in the United states of america due to current events, such as mass shootings, and political trends. By irresolute its name, the company aimed to aggrandize its outdoor gear business organization to new markets that might take negative views of the firearm industry. Since the name alter, however, the company's stock has fallen past over 50%.

three. Netflix

•Old name: Qwikster

•Year changed: 2011

In 2011, having already announced a 60% price hike that infuriated customers, Netflix Inc. introduced Qwikster. The plan, function of Netflix'due south attempt to separate its streaming video service from its DVD mailing service, was an instant flop. Customers decried not only the higher costs but besides the inconvenience of two separate websites and two dissever bills. The Qwikster conclusion lasted just a few weeks. In a 2011 conference call, CEO Reed Hastings said of the Qwikster plan, "In hindsight, information technology's hard to justify." He as well added, "Qwikster became the symbol of Netflix not listening."

4. Academi

•Former name: Xe Services, Blackwater Worldwide

•Year changed: 2009, 2011

The corporation one time known as Blackwater has changed its name twice in the past 4 years. In September 2007, five Blackwater guards were involved in an incident that resulted in the deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad. In February 2009, likely in role as a public relations move, Blackwater inverse its name to Xe Services. Merely a few months later, two of its mercenaries fired on a vehicle and killed ii Afghan civilians.

In December 2011, six months afterward the second gunman was convicted and sentenced to 37 months in prison for manslaughter, the company once again changed its proper name, this time to Academi. As reported by The Wall Street Journal, the company's CEO, Ted Wright, explained the name change was an try to appear more than "boring."

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5. Subway

•Quondam proper noun: Pete's Super Submarines

•Year changed: 1968

The fast-food sandwich chain now known as Subway was founded in 1965 -- just dorsum then it went by the proper name Pete's Super Submarines, or, Pete's Submarines, as it read in ads and on billboards. The shop was initially named after the man the eating house's founder, Fred DeLuca, had borrowed money from to get the operation off the basis. The relatively cumbersome proper name was short lived, however, as it was often misheard as "pizza submarine." The concatenation changed its proper noun to the at present familiar Subway in 1968.

6. Ally Financial

•Former name: GMAC Banking concern

•Year inverse: 2010

In 2008, in the midst of the financial crisis and the bailing out of a number of major financial institutions, the U.S. government bailed out the American car industry to the melody of over $80 billion. As role of this lifeline, the government purchased billions of dollars in shares of GMAC, which began as the financing arm of General Motors and was partially owned by the automaker. Information technology also injected money into GM directly.

In 2010, GMAC changed the name of its banking unit of measurement to Ally Financial. The conclusion appears to have been made to altitude the company from both its ain rescue and General Motors' fiscal difficulties.

7. Altria

•One-time name: Philip Morris

•Yr changed: 2003

Cigarette giant Philip Morris, maker of brands like Marlboro, inverse its proper noun to Altria Group Inc. in 2003 on the same solar day that the company was cleared of responsibility in a smoking-related wrongful expiry case. The motility had been planned since 2001. Philip Morris claimed that the proper name change was intended to emphasize that the company sells a wide array of products, in addition to the famous tobacco make, but the assumption for many is that the movement was largely to disassociate the company from its controversial product.

An anti-tobacco grouping, Intact, called the programme "a PR maneuver meant to distance the corporation's prototype from its deadly business practices." The tobacco units, Philip Morris International and Philip Morris USA, kept their original names.

viii. WWE

•Onetime name: World Wrestling Federation

•Year changed: 2002

The pop entertainment company one time known as the Globe Wrestling Federation, or WWF, had to modify its proper name for a very different reason than many of the other companies on this listing -- a trademark violation. Few multimillion dollar companies come across such a problem. But the Earth Wildlife Fund, a global conservation organization founded in 1961 that carries the initials WWF, sued the entertainment group and won on the grounds that information technology had broken a 1994 agreement that it would limit use of the WWF initials. The WWF in 2002 changed its name to World Wrestling Amusement, and finally just WWE.

9. AirTran Airways

•Former name: ValuJet Airlines

•Yr inverse: 1997

On May 11, 1996, ValuJet Flying 592 crashed in the Florida Everglades, with no survivors among the 110 passengers and crew. Post-obit the crash, despite initially ruling the airline safe, the FAA grounded ValuJet Airlines flights in June 1996 for 3 months. The FAA stated ValuJet knowingly flew planes that were potentially unsafe. Although it after returned to offer inexpensive flights, in 1997 ValuJet acquired AirTran Airways, taking the smaller airline'due south name.

x. Bausch Health

•Former name: Valeant Pharmaceuticals

•Year inverse: 2018

Valeant Pharmaceuticals gained tremendous public notoriety for sharply raising prices on life-saving drugs the company offered through its chemist's shop Philidor, which has since been shut down. Company shares plummeted in 2015 and several public lawsuits have surfaced in the wake of the collapse. The company adopted the name of its middle care subsidiary, Bausch + Lomb, which it acquired in 2013.

In July 2018 information technology officially inverse its name to Bausch Health. In tardily 2019, the company agreed to pay shareholders $one.21 billion on the grounds that it misled them about its financial state of affairs leading upwardly to the stock price plummet.

11. Tribune Publishing Co.

•Old proper name: Tronc

•Year changed: 2018

In 2016, Tribune Publishing, the owner of major newspapers like the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, inverse its name to Tronc. The name modify was likely intended to point the publishing company'south motility into the modern media mural, and too to forestall confusion between the company and Tribune Media, the visitor from which it was spun off in 2014. The change was not well-received. Two years later on, Tribune Media was apparently in the process of merging with Sinclair Broadcasting Group, and Tronc inverse its name back. The merger eventually brutal through just the name alter stuck.

12. Intel Security

•One-time name: McAfee

•Year changed: 2014

Since its inception in 1987, McAfee has gone through several proper name changes. The antivirus software company shared a proper name with its eccentric founder John McAfee for well over a decade, until information technology was bought by Intel in 2010 and rebranded equally Intel Security. The rebranding was an effort to distance the production from Mr. McAfee, whose erratic behavior was making international headlines.

The merger was curt lived notwithstanding. McAfee began operating equally an independent company once again in April 2017. The rebranding from Intel back to McAfee was rolled out in stages and almost fully completed equally of 2019.

xiii. RH

•Former proper name: Restoration Hardware

•Year changed: 2017

In a rebranding effort obviously geared at improving business, the article of furniture retailer Restoration Hardware officially changed its name to RH on Jan. 1, 2017. The rebranding decision had been fabricated as far back equally 2012 when the visitor's old CEO Carlos Alberini explained that the change "enhances our identity and moves usa beyond our Hardware store ancestry."

Since the rebranding was made official, the company's share price has climbed by over 600%. The visitor had been known equally Restoration Hardware since information technology was founded in 1979.

14. WW

•Sometime proper name: Weight Watchers

•Year changed: 2018

After 55 years in business equally Weight Watchers, a weight management services company, changed its name to WW in 2018. The alter was part of a rebranding effort designed to keep the company competitive as cultural norms effectually weight loss began to modify. Namely, dieting has become taboo in favor of personal health and body positivity. The rebranding appears to have been effective to some degree, as the company's share price has climbed over 25% in the last yr.

15. CoreCivic

•One-time name: Corrections Corporation of America

•Year changed: 2016

The private prison industry in the United States, which had been growing in popularity as a solution for incarcerating inmates and equally of 2017 housed over 121,000 inmates, has garnered a bully deal of public criticism for its treatment of prisoners. In 2016, a study by the Department of Justice found that fourteen private incarceration facilities had college incidence of violence compared to federal-run prisons, and also said these prisons had substandard medical care and by and large poor living conditions.

The largest private prison visitor in the country, Corrections Corporation of America, was included in the report. That aforementioned yr, the DOJ announced it would no longer use individual prisons. That October, CCA appear information technology would modify its name to CoreCivic, likely in part to distance the visitor from the recent poor press.

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Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/01/12/companies-forced-to-change-their-names/40963349/

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