Decree Absolute

Virgin Radio is about to change its name. If you’re a listener then you’ll have heard the numbingly endless trails announcing the fact. By the end of September, TIML (part of The Times of India Group) should have completely eradicated a slice of 15 years of broadcasting history. The station’s divorce from Virgin will be Absolute. But Absolute what?
And do we really care? I’m pretty sure 5 million listeners don’t tune in just so they can tell their friends that they’re part of Richard Branson’s global brand franchise. Radio is an individual thing. It’s involving and it’s personal. We listen to presenters and content not radio stations. So it comes as very little surprise then that TIML didn’t want to pay another £8 million (on top of the £53 million for the station) for a name that is, in the world of wireless at least, a little bit tired. It’s been through too many hands and had too many personality changes to stand for anything memorable - the jocks, the listeners and the relationship that exists between them are really all that matter.
The path to rebranding enlightenment is strewn with casualties. In 2002, the vogue for oblique but unsuccessful company names seemed to have reached its zenith. The consulting arm of PriceWaterhouseCoopers, perhaps in the vain hope of becoming another brand phenomenon like ‘Orange’, renamed itself Monday. The intention was to denote fresh thinking and new beginnings and not the unwelcome start of the working week. After a few long weeks of ridicule, the company was bought by IBM Global Services, which swiftly dropped the £75m (ouch!) rebranding.
In the same year – and this is surely the best case-study on how not to rebrand - The Post Office rustled up the catchy alias ‘Consignia’ in preparation for deregulation. However, failure to communicate the rationale for change to its stakeholders combined with poor performance led to a national outcry. It was, unsurprisingly, rebranded as the Royal Mail Group a few months later.
People just don’t like being sucked unwillingly into someone else’s conceit - especially when it concerns a well-loved institution like the Post Office. Moreover, surprise announcements never go down well. A loud unannounced rebranding bang is a shock that stimulates the snap reflexes of closed eyes, dropped heads, fights or flight – understandable reactions designed to protect, defend and prevent change but none of them conducive to communication.
Kellogg’s found this out the hard way when they attempted to re-christen the UK’s beloved Coco Pops as Choco Krispies in line with their other European markets. Within weeks 92% of voters in a telephone poll voted to ditch the new name and Coco Pops was back on the shelves before the milk had even turned chocolatey.
In Britain, at least, it seems consumers won’t be told what to do, think, believe or say. It’s amazing therefore that the German energy behemoth E.On managed to acquire Powergen, get rid of the name, dump some pretty good rugby investments and slip almost unnoticed into Britain and become part of our vernacular within the space of 2 years.
Back in 2006, regulations and red tape prevented the brand campaign from coming on line as quickly as had been hoped. But the marketing team also had another problem. The sponsorship marketing team had been offered a sponsorship opportunity that was a perfect fit and importantly was available – The FA Cup.
Despite having no ad campaign with which to build a brand platform – the bedrock to support the pillars of a sponsorship campaign - the deal went ahead and E.On was introduced softly into every corner of the nation alongside the country’s favourite sport – England’s greatest football tournament was sponsored by a brand that no one, in this country at least, had ever heard of. At every level of the game and throughout all media, the defeats and victories of the early rounds permeated just about every community and pub conversation. E.On had begun, via sponsorship, to establish many of its brand values in the minds of the public - values that would normally struggle to be conveyed with any real credibility by insistent advertising promises and messages.
Broadcast, press and tremendously creative activation did most of the heavy lifting. This campaign, while driven off air cascaded naturally throughout editorial without any need to take ownership of programmes or presenters. The inherent value of the news and stories generated by the sponsorship and the twists and turns within it gave (and continues to give) E.On the momentum to ensure that its name and values are communicated using a myriad of media and social networks they have not had to pay for.
Sponsorship is not a dark art; it’s common sense marketing that integrates a brand into the fabric, conversations and lives of special interest groups and communities. Importantly it builds trust and encourages them to believe. Actions always speak louder than words.
So Virgin Radio can tell me till they’re red in the face that their station is changing its name but if they were to do something that made me believe they stood for something; that they were worth changing my listening habits for I might be more inclined to believe that this was anything other than just a fresh lick of paint. Plus ça change...