rebranding

[Laurence Horn]

At 5:50 PM -0400 6/1/11, victor steinbok wrote:
>The OED only has the plain meaning that is rather equivalent to the earlier
>ranchers' use:
>
>Marketing. The application of a new brand identity to an existing product or
>>  service. Also in extended use.
>
>
>
>This is a bit heavy-handed. There is a variation of "rebranding" that
>implies more than mere change of label. It's the change of identity of a
>/company/ in the wake of adverse publicity. The classics:
>
>Archer Daniels Midland --> ADM (following several scandals of chemicals in
>food)
>Kentucky Fried Chicken --> KFC (to avoid the reference to "fried" food)

Some of these abbreviations, like the above couple, overlap with the
more general practice of euphemistic distancing by initialism
extending to the rebranding of non-brands, as in V.D. and STD/STI
(discussed here recently), along with E.D., P.E. (not the gym kind),
and now in commercials Low T.  I like to think of these as plain
brown wrapper initialisms.

LH

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