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A SPECIAL ANNEX NEWSFLASH
Updated 6/10/02, 9:15 a.m. PDT (adds reader comments)
PriceWaterhouseCoopers Consulting to Change Its Name
What's in a Name...
PwCC to Become Monday after the IPO! No Kidding...
PHOENIX, June 9 - We don't know if you've heard the news, but we've just received an e-mail notification from PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Consulting about a planned change of name after their IPO is executed in August 2002. The new company will be called Monday.
At first, we thought it was a joke. It was not. Check out the PwCC web site www.introducingmonday.com promoting its new name - Monday... being launched on a Monday, of course.
Enclosed below is a copy of the feedback we have sent to the PwCC executives, responding to the request for comments at the above web site.
If you have any comments about it, feel free to share it with us by writing to:
Thank you.
--------------
From the www.introducingmonday.com web site:
TELL US WHAT YOU THINK
Ask us questions.
Challenge us.
CONTACT
Okay, since you asked to be challenged... here's my initial reaction...
Monday? You chose Monday for a global company name?
My first reaction: "You can't be serious!" [to quote John MacEnroe's (in)famous line when disputing referee line calls].
Other succinct reactions by two business associates I was able to reach on this Sunday evening: (1) "dumb;" (2) "lame."
Of course, PwCC isn't much of a name, either. But Monday will be the butt of jokes, especially by your competitors.
Off the cuff, here are just some lines that come to mind...
---
"
Monday? You're planning to work only one day a week?"---
"
Monday, Monday..." (The Mama's and the Pappa's 1966 hit - to play it, click here...). Will you choose that as your new company theme song?If not, maybe your competition will. And here's why... (an excerpt from the lyrics):
Monday, Monday
, can't trust that dayMonday, Monday
, sometimes it just turns out that wayOh
Monday mornin' you gave me no warnin' of what was to beOh
Monday, Monday, how could you leave and not take me
Every other day, every other day
Every other day of the week is fine, yeah
But whenever
Monday comes, but whenever Monday comesA-you can find me cryin' all of the time
---
"It's easy to be a
Monday morning quarterback. But we need someone who can tell us what's ahead in business." [a customer speaking to your salesperson]---
"Are you again singing the
Monday morning blues?" [a competitor talking to your customer]---
"So you are our new Monday salesman! Whom should we call on Tuesday?" [a customer speaking to your salesman who came to introduce himself]
---
"Are you guys producers of '
Monday Night Football'?" [a Wall Street "ma and pa"-investor about your IPO]---
"Okay, so give your
Monday business to them. We'll take the rest of the week." [a competitor talking to your customer]---
"Your company name is
Monday? What kind of a fool do you take me for? Today is June 9th, not April 1st, you know." [a prospect speaking to your salesperson]---
Many U.S. holidays fall on
Mondays... [Labor Day, MLK Day, President's Day, Memorial Day... etc.]. You want your American customers to think of you as a day off?---
In your today's (June 9) letter to me (signed by Tom O'Neill, chairman, and Greg Brenneman, CEO), you said you chose the name which is
"short, distinctive, memorable, global name - one that would set us apart from the consulting 'crowd'."Well, I've just run a search of the Net and got
18,300,000 hits. So much for Monday being "distinctive." But it does set you apart, that's for sure. Don't expect the consulting 'crowd' to trip over themselves while trying to grab the rest of the week for their "global" names.---
The letter also said that PwCC, oops...
Monday, has 32,000 employees and does business in "52 countries and territories on six continents." Pardon me for pointing out the trite, but Monday actually means the first day of the work week only in English-speaking countries. Will you call yourselves Lundi in France, Montag in Germany, Luned́ in Italy, Segunda-feira in Brazil (and Portugal), ?*! in China, Lunes in Spain and Mexico, Ponedelynik in Russia, etc.?Clearly,
Monday is neither "global," nor will it be "memorable" in non-English speaking countries. But it will be "distinctive." Customers won't understand what it means. So they may just shrug it off.That will be a fine Monday legacy... In North America,
Monday will connote a day off. Elsewhere, it will stand for a shrug off.---
That's just a few thoughts that came to mind, off the cuff...
Maybe you should consider firing your marketing consultants? (whoever they are... I have no idea whose bright idea
Monday was? Except it's probably a safe bet his/her brain was on holiday... holiday Monday, of course).If you want more comments and ideas, you'll need to hire me as your replacement marketing consultant. But I don't work Mondays. :-) [just kidding... :-) ].
Happy
Monday bargain hunting!Bob Djurdjevic
PHOENIX, June 10 - We've asked for your comments, and we are getting some interesting ones. Here's a selection...
UK - Globally, Monday Is Very Un-PC!
Asinine. Monday - no matter in what language - is only the first day of the week in Christian countries. Globally, this is "very un-PC!" (politically incorrect!).
Also, [Sir] Bob Geldof's "Boomtown Rats" also did "I don't like
Mondays". In a San Carlos, California schoolyard, on Monday January 29, 1979,16-year-old Brenda Spencer appeared with a rifle she just received for Christmas, and began shooting. By the time the unprovoked shooting rampage ended, the school's principal and janitor were dead. During the melee, Spencer also shot a police officer through the neck and wounded eight elementary school children.When later asked why she did such this ghastly deed, Spencer is quoted as
saying "I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day."Phil Payne, Isham Research, London, United Kingdom
---------
NEBRASKA - "I Don't Like Mondays. I Want to Shoot the Whole Day Down"
Rats," "I don't like Mondays," written after a teenage girl sniper killed two and wounded nine at a California schoolyard in 1979.My initial thought on hearing the PwC name was this song by the "Boomtown
Here's an excerpt from the song's lyrics:
The silicon chip inside her head.
Gets switched to overload,
And nobody's gonna go to school today,
She's going to make them stay at home,
And Daddy doesn't understand it,
He always said she was as good as gold,
And he can see no reason.
'Cause there are no reasons.
What reason do you need to be shown.
Tell me why.
I Don't like Mondays.
I want to shoot.
The whole day down.
Stewart Winograd, Data Transmission Network, Nebraska
