AOL Considering Ditching Its Brand Name

Megalith

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The company is facing an image problem and believes that taking on a new moniker may help. AOL already tried this kind of thing back in 2009, which was apparently unsuccessful.

"The Aol name has many associations that people just can’t get past," says Sam Wilson, global principal at consultancy Wolff Olins, which led the company's rebrand in 2009. "The worst merger in history, charging old ladies for dial up, and 'You've got mail.'" Wilson believes that even though the company has built up its credibility with advertisers on its business-to-business side, it needs to kill the "AOL" name for its ad products.
 
I do find it odd that there are websites I actually trust that are under the AOL umbrella. They're probably due for a rebrand at this point.
 
AOL back in the day did some Things right, but they also did some things wrong. I'm glad that they are going away.
 
Sure they "rebranded" back in 2009 but they kept the same name. Getting rid of the name might do them some good, especially since they are no longer what they were before.

It is like 2 years ago at a convention the head of EarthLink came up on stage and asked how many people think that AOL is their main competitor. Then he proceeded to say how most of their money today comes from being an IT company. They sell network services to business class customers. They go in and give them hosted PBX system, manage their networks, and in some cases sell them fiber based ISP service. Dialup or even DSL for the few areas they provided service is almost nothing to them now. But with that name that isn't what you think because we all know them as a dialup company from years back.

Same here with AOL. You hear that and you instantly think dialup, the houses build out of cds they flooded the nation with.... you don't think ad company that runs multiple larger names that you probably see and go to on a regular basis. Everyone knows the Huffington Post. They don't know that is an AOL company. So I think some new name would help them present a new image while getting rid of any thoughts of past crimes.
 
Even when people make fun of it everybody has probably heard of AOL who is 30+ so what could they really do with a name change to somebody know would know?
 
Even when people make fun of it everybody has probably heard of AOL who is 30+ so what could they really do with a name change to somebody know would know?

People forget, don't know they changed names or just wont' care.

Our customer data platform was created by one company over 25 years ago. A few years back we upgraded to the company's newest platform. During that time they were bought out and the company changed names. Even though we referred to the company by their new name, any calls to them for support would have said their new name, and all emails from them came from the new name. 90% of our company was convinced that we changed companies along with software. I lost track of how many times I heard people say how this new company isn't as good as the old one, we should have stuck with them. Had to keep telling people we did stay with the same company we just upgraded to their newest software instead of something created back before half the people using it were born.

In this case, if suddenly Huffington Post was owned by Verizon Global News Corp. (just making up a name) How would you or the average person know that Verizon Global News Corp used to be AOL? Anyone who already has a contract will know once they inform them, but at that point they already work with them and don't care about the name. Those that don't have contracts with them will see the name Verizon and stop there, they don't care if that division had a name before. Give it about a year or so and people will have forgot all about the name change and just see whatever the new name is.
 
I think AOL could become a strong name again. Just need to re-brand the whole company image.
 
The prune industry spent a good deal of time and money convincing people they were "dried plums" due to negative connotations (I still think of the "King's Quest: Quest for the Prune Juice" gag from way back). It would take too many years for enough people to forget the old AOL to give it a clean slate.....I still maintain an AOL email address just because of too many dependencies and sites tied to it over the years, but when I have to give an email address I only give an AOL one if it's something I don't care about like expected spam when asked my email address at a checkout line, otherwise I'd still feel embarrassed that people would think I use AOL.

Speaking of brand names gone down the tubes, "spam" is something now with an almost universally negative connotation....and if you mean the actual product, it's still considered negative! AOL and spam are pretty much soulmates in reputatuon these days, I see AOL and think of the Time Warner deal, dialup, Steve Case, a billion coaster floppies and CDs everywhere, and of course "You've Got Mail!"
 
What does AOL do that people want? What products do they have that would see more sales if they change their name? Rebranding only helps if you have new products that didn't exist back when people knew who you were. You can't just rebrand by itself and expect anything to change.
 
What does AOL do that people want? What products do they have that would see more sales if they change their name? Rebranding only helps if you have new products that didn't exist back when people knew who you were. You can't just rebrand by itself and expect anything to change.

What do you think AOL does? They are a news company
 
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