The names have been changed to protect the profits

A phenomenon which is new to me is the concept of rebranding. This is an image facelift in an attempt to change the public’s perception of a company or other entity. Often times it is only attempted after a large amount of bad press or a particularly distressing incident.
The first one I heard of was Phillip Morris. Phillip Morris is a company known far and wide as the manufacturer of cigarettes. The only thing to accumulate more bad press than cigarettes is probably…uh…I’m gonna have to think about this one…well… Nazis.
So after a chain of lawsuits that makes Nuremberg look like an episode of Law and Order Phillip Morris decided it was time for subterfuge, oops, I mean a public relations makeover. To do this they didn’t stop making cigarettes. They didn’t stop trying to sell cigarettes to as many people as they could. They did, however, change their name. Phillip Morris became Altria.
This was brilliant. The name Phillip Morris sounds like a man who sits in a glass and steel corporate skyscraper behind a mahogany desk larger than a Volkswagen dispensing orders to buy and sell stock while chomping on a foot long cigar, stepping on the human rights of any and all underlings, and instigating environmentally insensitive policies with a loud guffaw. While Altria sounds like the Greek goddess of empathy who was known for her kindness to large-eyed orphans and kittens.
Actually, I learned the word Altria is derived from a Latin word meaning “high”. This begs the question, is this company making cigarettes from the usual tobacco or has Michael Phelps found a new endorsement deal?
Their logo makes no sense to me. It is a square made up of a bunch of different colored squares. It looks like that thing you get when you select the “more colors” option on your computer. Is this supposed to indicate the diversity of their product lines? Or is it representative of the wide variety of phlegm colors one can produce after having smoked for a number of years.
Another company who decided to rebrand is Blackwater. Yes, the warriors for hire company who got such a rosy report back in the United States after its endeavors in Iraq. This firm put itself through its own version of witness relocation by changing its name to Xe. Nope, I did not make that up. They chose to adopt a company name which is more like an algebra notation than an actual recognizable word.
In one way it makes sense because people who are trying to hide from their past are often referred to as Mr. X in the journalistic exposes recounting the unfortunate events. This company did not adopt the motto of John Wayne type heroes. The old kicking tail mindset of shoot first and ask questions later. They preferred their own variation on that theme: shoot first and refuse to answer questions later.
There have been discussions amongst some political pundits after the recent presidential election that the Republican Party needs to go through a sort of rebranding. They are not suggesting the party simply change its name (even though I would love the chance to name a whole political party) but rather spend time and effort to re-define what the party stands for so it better reaches the voters. While I am not a political operative in any way, shape or form I am a person who spends a lot of time with the younger generation and I think I might have a good idea about how to grow the party by becoming attractive to kids who could not vote in the last election but will do so in 2012.
The Republican Party needs to become the party of the virtual candidate. They need a nominee who was created via the Spore internet site. One who has an ample presence on Facebook. A candidate able to win battles in the World of Warcraft, rescue Princess Zelda, collect voluminous campaign contributions in Lego studs, and willing to name Steve Jobs as his running mate/programmer. I have the perfect name for this candidate as well: George Wii-shington. His slogan would be: “Now is the time for all good nerds to come to aid of their gaming consoles.” If voting becomes the newest app for the iPod touch the election is in the bag.

Christopher Pyle would like to form the Delightfully Apathetic Dudes (DAD) Party. The chief planks of its platform would be mandatory Saturday afternoon napping, a man’s inalienable right to have chocolate covered doughnuts for breakfast and year round NFL. To register in this party e-mail Chris at occasionallykeen@yahoo.com