It’s fascinating to me when people attempt to change their names. Like a kid from high school who spent his formative years known as Robby but all the sudden college came around he wanted people to call him Rob. It makes sense; names ending in y usually aren’t taken as seriously as a solid one syllable name. But that doesn’t mean it’s not going to be uphill battle. People are creatures of habit and it’s going to take a lot of “Oh, I go by (insert new name) now” before it’ll stick.
If it’s hard for an individual person to change their name among their social circle you can only imagine the difficulty facing a company opting for a new name! People spend a lot of money in advertising and marketing to change how the name of their company or product is perceived. But I have to believe sometimes they wish they could just scrap their current name and start anew! (I’d guess at least one person after the oil spill suggested BP just change their name and hope no one noticed!)
But Sunsweet is trying to do just that. I was pretty impressed with the bold move of this Sunsweet Ad attempting to rename prunes as Plum Amazins. I am not embarrassed to admit it took me a few seconds to recognize that this wasn’t a new product but rather a new name. Prunes have a serious stigma and are often the butt of jokes. I think this is the rare case where a name change might actually be easier than trying to change their connotation. You can say all the wonderful benefits of prunes but it doesn’t change the fact that they are prunes. Despite the obvious challenges of a name change I think this was probably their best strategy.
Although, I still don’t plan on going out and buying dried plums just because you don’t call them prunes. But here’s to hoping other people don’t make the same connection!