Call me a creature of habit, but as someone who still eats Marathons, buys insurance from Norwich Union and collects Airmiles, I'm worried I might struggle to get on board with the new name that's been chosen by the publisher of the Yellow Pages.
The company behind the famous phone directory, Yell Group, has announced plans to change its name to hibu (pronounced high-boo), subject to shareholder approval. The group said its transformation into a predominantly digital business would "require it to adopt a modern new brand to help its customers and consumers find, and identify with, its new products".
The hibu brand has been five months in the making. New digital products will be sold under that name, and if it is approved at the AGM on 26 July the group will become hibu plc. (The print version of the Yellow Pages will not have its name changed, but it hasn't been decided if yell.com will be rebranded.)
A spokesman for Yell said the group had been looking for "an identity to tell our story … we are positioning the company to be 'connecting communities'" and that the name "is standing for the people who make communities thrive". However, he admitted the new name did not derive from anything related to that sentiment. "We wanted something that was distinctive, that was ownable, and something that was short."
As the group's chief executive told the Evening Standard, Yahoo and Google came from nowhere, and they are now big brands, with Google ranked third in the annual Brandz survey by market research firm Millward Brown. So maybe in a few years time we will all be talking about "hibuing a number".
What do you think? Does hibu do it for you?
