Ever thought of using initials for the name of your company? Don’t do it. Other than IBM, AT&T and the three broadcast networks, initials are a waste in terms of branding. It doesn’t mean that companies don’t try initials over and over again. They just don’t work very well!
In the music business of the ’80s, it was quite the fad. BMG is one in the biggest music business companies. Does the name conjure up any brand identity? Probably not. It started out as Bertelsmann Music Group. At least then, you knew which industry it was a part of. Remember MCA? It was a huge record company. Do you remember anything about it? Both have turned out to be less memorable and recognizable than their competitors who used actual words as names. Capitol Records, Columbia Records and, of course, Virgin Records always tested higher than MCA.
People also were more aware of Columbia Records than CBS Records. But the corporate bigwigs wanted the parallel structure of CBS Inc and CBS Records. For people who were around in the ’60s through the ’80s, Columbia Records was memorable. CBS Records? Not so much.
That’s just the business I lived in back then. Think about the industry you know. And then think about companies whose names are initials. They are always harder to remember.
Back to IBM, AT&T and CBS, NBC, CBS. You don’t have enough money to ever have the impact that those five companies have had! IT&T was AT&T’s competitor. It was as big, and it was international. In fact, that’s what the “I” stood for. However, the name doesn’t exist anymore– no one could remember it!
Tags: Branding, company logo
Wait, what about the label that either turned down or lost Taylor Swift, RCA – his master’s voice – Nipper? See, they couldn’t stand on their own initials, but they have one hell of a building in LA. I want to go to the piano room in the basement. It started as Radio Corporation of America. American Telephone and Telegraph – where I started – changed its name to simply AT&T in the ’90s, about 100 years after launching. What about MCI (Money Coming In, Many Changes Instantly as it was known internally)? Look how successful they are today!
Richard– Good points. The RCA building, when it was at Sunset and Gower in Hollywood, also had Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles on the ground floor. It couldn’t get any better than that! But, RCA is a great example of initials not working as a brand. When it the corporation was sold back in the late 80′s they tried to keep the name and found that people just didn’t have a clear idea of what RCA meant. So, eventually they stopped using it. SONY Records revived the name RCA Records. They’re the one’s that have CBS Records, too. Neither of those labels has any brand identity in the music business any more.