Mountain Coop's new name - if it's not broke don't fix it

Mountain Coop has been successfully operating and pleasing greens and green wannabees for over 40 years. Now unless they know something we don't, they have decided to change their name. No it's not a radical change. Going from Mountain Coop to MEC (short form for Mountain Equipment Coop) is not complete blasphemy. But it makes no sense. The mountains say, outdoors, healthy. MEC says... "Eck!" ...or something similar you get stuck to the bottom of your shoe.
You can understand the rationale when Kentucky Fried Chicken abbreviated to KFC. Fried...bad. KFC cool. I researched a bit and found some other questionable rebrand decisions. This one definitely tops the list. The Sci Fi channel in the States decided to rebrand itself as SYFY. When it was revealed to them, that was street urban language for syphilis, they had a rethink. One of the bigger head scratchers of recent rebrand history was Pepsi's process to modify their logo. They spent over a million dollars to come up with something that looks like it could be a logo for a new basketball league.

The marketing team said the white swoosh was supposed to be smiles. Shareholders couldn't have been smiling when they saw the numbers.

Great marketers know that you can create something from nothing. But turning something into nothing with a brutal rebrand is a skill all unto itself.

With over 30 years experience, Tim McLarty  currently works out of Toronto Canada as a writer/voice performer, producer and media strategist producing advertising and entertainment content.

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