Product name changes - why?

Jonny69

Jonny69

Jonny69

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Inspired by this thread what's the point in companies changing the name of their products?

Some examples of well established brands that have pointlessly changed:

Immac - now Veet (as in other thread)
Marathon - now Snickers
Opal Fruits - now Starburst
Coco Pops - went to Choco Crispies - now Coco Pops again
Jif - now Cif
Oil of Ulay - now Oil of Olay

I know there are others but in the case of Coco Pops they didn't even change the advert jingle "I'd rather have a bowl of Choco Crispies..." I mean who high up in the company listens to that and thinks 'yeah that works'? It's not even like you could get a lot of this stuff abroad so it can't be to conform with an international brand. Enlighten me :)
 
I think that Cif, Olay and Veet changed to be inline with their overseas products but I could be wrong. I'm sure I remember that Cif had to change as 'Jif' couldn't be pronounced in Spanish.

It annoys me though, I still call Opal Fruits Opal Fruits. And the Coco Pops thing was such a waste of time!
 
Jonny69 said:
Immac - now Veet (as in other thread)
Marathon - now Snickers
Opal Fruits - now Starburst
Coco Pops - went to Choco Crispies - now Coco Pops again
Jif - now Cif
Oil of Ulay - now Oil of Olay
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Snickers - brought in line with its name in the USA
Starburst - ditto (still call them opal fruits though!)
Coco Pops - stupid marketing idea
Jif - no idea!
Ulay - some vadge reference in the US iirc..
 
Opal Fruits forever ! :D

However I'll happily call the jelly bean style things Starburst as it's a different product and not really Opal Fruits - Am I alone in this? :confused:
 
Opal Fruits: Made To Make Your Mouth Water

Legendary advert jingle that can never be bettered with Starburst :cool:
 
Psymonkee said:
However I'll happily call the jelly bean style things Starburst as it's a different product and not really Opal Fruits - Am I alone in this? :confused:
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Well given I only ever knew them as Starburst Jelly Beans thats what I call them, I hadn't noticed them before as Opal Fruit Jelly Beans so it makes sense for them to be Starburst. :)

On a more local level to me they attempted to change the name of the dry ski slope from Hillend (which everyone knew) to Midlothian Ski and Snowboard centre (or similar) and went to huge expense changing everything but it still gets called Hillend by all and sundry. Hurrah for stubbornness. :D
 
semi-pro waster said:
On a more local level to me they attempted to change the name of the dry ski slope from Hillend (which everyone knew) to Midlothian Ski and Snowboard centre (or similar) and went to huge expense changing everything but it still gets called Hillend by all and sundry. Hurrah for stubbornness. :D
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That's like a pub in my town, it seems to change hands (and names) every couple of years but it takes everyone a while to start calling it by it's new name, so we're always one behind, madness. :D
 
From what I remember (according to my old fella) who used to work for Mars confectionary, there were about 15 product name changes (including snickers, opal fruits) over the last 20 years or so.

They still have different names for milky way (called 3 muskateers in the US) and Galaxy or Dove in the US. M&Ms used to be known as Treets. Minstrels are now known as Galaxy minstrels. And the same goes for the Ice cream lines, now the biggest sales of any I think.
 
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Aaaagh I remember when they were called Treets :eek:

Were they the old Melts in the mouth not in the hand things?
 
Jif -> Cif because of how the Scandinavians pronounced Jif. Cif (apparently) is pronounced the same everywhere, unlike Jif.

edit - too slow, missed a post and then spotted Vix has posted, albeit a slightly different story.
 
Kol said:
Jif -> Cif because of how the Scandinavians pronounced Jif. Cif (apparently) is pronounced the same everywhere, unlike Jif.

edit - too slow, missed a post and then spotted Vix has posted, albeit a slightly different story.
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The Spaniards pronouncing Jif as "yeef" being another reason for the change.
 
Scuzi said:
The Spaniards pronouncing Jif as "yeef" being another reason for the change.
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So what are we supposed to say? Sif, chif, kif, seef, cheef or keef? :D

I think what I'm trying to say is our products were called what they were because they had names that made sense to us and we could pronounce them ;)
 
The UK seems pretty good at resisting brand changes though. We still have Vauxhall, Walkers, Lynx...I'm sure there's lots more.

In South Africa, Axe (called Lynx here) used to be called Ego.

And that Opal Fruits advert is so hilarious.

'Now Opal Fruits have even more juice of the real fruit'

Makes no sense! :p
 
Jonny69 said:
So what are we supposed to say? Sif, chif, kif, seef, cheef or keef? :D

I think what I'm trying to say is our products were called what they were because they had names that made sense to us and we could pronounce them ;)
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Cif rhymes with Jif :p. If you had a global company, would you really want to have different names for your product in every country, or one name that works everywhere? ;)
 
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