Oh, the piquant joy when a marketing-led rebranding goes calamitously wrong. I refer to Standard Life Aberdeen’s decision to rename itself Abrdn. Remove two words and three vowels and make yourself a laughing stock. As one critic said: “It’s very hard to build a brand with something you can’t pronounce.” The whole exercise inevitably comes wreathed in delicious corporate speak – “a modern, agile, digitally enabled brand”; “a full stakeholder engagement plan to maintain the transition”.
Elsewhere, who knew that the world of interiors was such a snake pit, so easily given to insulting language? There was a time when, if you wanted to skewer someone’s taste, you simply said, “I bet their house is top to bottom Farrow and Ball” and you’d be met with knowing approval from like-minded types. So, given the furore over the prime minister and his flat refurbishment, is there anyone who would admit to shopping at John Lewis? Thought not.
There were other unpleasantnesses last week. The first was the legend on the back of a flat-bed truck – “property solution hub”. It was a builder’s van. Then there was “Auto Cosmetix”. A garage. And a sign outside a pub announced that it served Sunday roasts of chicken, beef and nut roast. Chicken had been spelt “chix”.
Lastly, what has become of the yuppie? I only ask because I was listening to an old Tom Petty album, which featured the lyric: “My sister got lucky/married a yuppie” and it made me ponder when I had last heard the word. Damned if I could remember. Is this once reviled breed a thing of the past? What is his replacement (I think yuppies were pretty much always men)? And what term, if any, has replaced it? Get me Wolff Olins on the phone – I bet it could come up with a snappy replacement.
• Jonathan Bouquet is an Observer columnist
