Jack Tame: Vodafone by any other name... (1)

What’s in a name?

Depending on how much it means to you, potentially tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. And while everyone was quick to criticise Vodafone’s New Zealand rebrand, history tells us that actually with a few months under the belt, it’ll all have blown over and One NZ will be just fine.

‘But Jack!’ You’re wondering...

‘What about TV ONE?’

Yep. True. There’s a clash there, of sorts. But one’s a Telco and one’s a TV station. And while I can’t speak for my TV bosses, I’m fairly confident I’m not the only person with the capacity to work out the difference.

‘But Jack!’ You’re wondering...

‘What about the racist undertones?’

For goodness’ sake. As someone who engages with politics most than most, personally I’d never heard of the ONE New Zealand Foundation until people started furiously tweeting about them. A former Green Party MP even announced on social media that her partner was phoning around to shift the pair’s Vodafone plan to a provider that wasn’t somehow inadvertently endorsing an apparently racist ideas.

Do I agree with the ideology of the ONE New Zealand Foundation? No, of course not. If you’re in the headspace to be seduced by that kind of thing, the name of your cell phone provider is the least of your concerns, and I’m a sensible person whose time is far too valuable to waste on crackpot ideas. It’s for that same reason that I can’t imagine in a million years drawing a tenuous link between a cell phone provider and a fringe, far-right group. I hate the term ‘virtue-signalling’ but ask yourself if anyone going through the hassle of changing cell phone providers this weekend is doing it to meaningfully fight racism or really just doing it for the Tweet?

Most telecommunications companies have business models that rely on scale. They need the biggest-possible customer base. And if you’re targetting a broad customer base, it doesn’t make sense to insult or upset people. That’s why they choose simple names. Preferably one word. Not too many syllables.

Maybe Vodafone’s marketting team took the ‘one word’ principle too literally. Was One NZ a visionary rebrand? No. A game-changing piece of marketting? No. Is it a name that particularly inspires? No. Does that matter? No, of course not. Not at all.

Remember when everyone fussed and fumed because Spark’s new logo looked like a cat’s bum? We got over that. We’ll get over this. The brand formally known as Vodafone has a massive reach and a massive marketting budget. I reckon we’ll get used to saying ‘One NZ’ before we get used to King Charles.

And actually, what’s most puzzling to me about the name game this week is why the owners of a certain Auckland hotel decided not to follow Vodafone’s lead. Having completely overhauled its 221 rooms, with new carpet, curtains, and cabinetry, beds and and even TVs, the only thing that has hasn’t changed at the hotel is the name.

And let’s be honest, if ever there was a good argument for a rebrand, surely Jet Park was it?

Maybe the owners knew. They didn’t need to wait for Vodafone’s example. When it comes down to it, we humans just don’t like change.

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