It can be amusing when a corporation goes through an identity crisis. Usually a corporate name change stems from the board or owner’s desire to move the company in a new direction or to pretend that they know what the consumer wants. I suppose sometimes they actually do know what the consumer wants, but more often a name change on an established company makes customers go, “huh?” more than anything else.

I think that more often though, companies decide to change their corporate name to get out from under a dark cloud that they imposed only on themselves.

Here are some of the worst of the worst corporate name changes:

The Shack::Radio Shack. This was so bad that I had to write about it in a previous post. While I now know that the company isn’t completely changing its name to the Shack, I still am not quite sure what the company was thinking when they decided it would be a good idea to align their company with a rickety old building. When I think Hi Tech, I’m not thinking about shacks.

Xe :: Blackwater. Earlier this year Blackwater decided that it would change its name to Xe because the Blackwater name was tarnished thanks to a 2007 incident that led to the death of 17 unarmed Iraqi civilians. Thankfully, even after the name change the government did not renew the company’s contract.

Altria :: Philip Morris Co. When the company changed its name on the same exact day that the company was cleared of responsibility for a woman’s smoking related death in late January 2003, it obviously wanted to escape the bad PR it had been getting. However, all that ended up happening was a magnifying glass on the company. Every time customers are reminded about the name change, they are reminded that this is the same Philip Morris they knew and they only tried to change their name to escape responsibility.

SyFy :: SciFi. This one I can’t quite figure out. All the cable station did was change the spelling of the already abbreviated name.

You can read more about bad name changes as well as the worst offender, I’ll give you a hint, it has something to do about the company who changed the name of the Sears Tower, all at the SOURCE.

An article written by Ethan Trex for Mental Floss brought up a few really interesting items that, over the years, Wal-Mart has banned from its aisles.

The first thing on the list was Midge, Barbie’s pregnant friend. Midge was part of Mattel’s “Happy Family” set. It’s not like she was trying to promote some kind of immoral family life either; Midge came with a husband and a son. When people started to complain that there was a pregnant Barbie, the doll got pulled.

A pair of underwear also found itself under fire when a cheeky saying on the pair “who needs credit cards…when you have Santa” got people fired up. Wal-Mart pulled the panties soon after they were released around Christmastime in 2007. With this one, yea, I can see how this could be particularly awful. Like the original poster said, this would be better on a t-shirt; harmless. But on a pair of Juniors’ underwear it’s a bit too much. It’s like seeing “sexy” costumes on Amazon for pre-teens (those get pulled as soon as people start noticing).

Even though 1995 was nearly 15 years ago, it’s not like it was before the Women’s Movement. In the Miami area, there was a shirt with Margaret from Dennis the Menace on the front. The shirt said “Someday a Woman Will Be President” and it was pulled from shelves of the Wal-Mart stores. Luckily, after some idiots got it right, the shirts were put back out on shelves, but not until they had been sitting in stock rooms for months.

Wal-Mart has always been known as a family-oriented store; or at least it has tried to be known as a family friendly store. So, it censors albums and even some movie titles (they required that Zach and Miri Make a Porno be shortened to simply Zach and Miri). Well, for reasons other than the movie being a bit raunchy, Wal-Mart did not sell the movie Superbad in Hawaii. Why? They pulled the movie from shelves after the governor asked them to because the movie came with a little fake ID like “McLovin’” had in the movie.

Wal-Mart really has some strange rules and while trying to maintain the company’s family friendly persona it has really made some interesting choices as to what it will and won’t stock. You can find some other really interesting things that the store has decided are too risque for its shelves at the source.
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The people who fly with British Airways will have to do something that people who fly on other airlines will NOT have to do: Pay for a particular seat on the plane. If they want to sit somewhere in particular they will have to pay some kind of fee according to the airline. The extra charges will only affect those who want to sit next to the window or the aisle (SO I suppose, if you want to be stuck in the middle of two people you don’t know, you should be alright?).

The change will take place starting on October 7th. The lowest fee that will be assessed will be 10 pounds for those who are booking their seats on an economy flight throughout Europe. The most expensive seats will cost the customer sixty pounds for long trips in the business class. Those who are expecting a seat somewhere near the emergency exit will have to pay an extra fifty pounds a flight.

British Airways says this measure will give customers more control over their seating. British Airways currently allows customers to select their seat for free 24 hours prior to their flight. If customers want to book ahead of time, they can do it before 10 and 4 days before take-off.

“Customers frequently request specific seats, but in the past we’ve only been able to confirm them 24 hours in advance or on the day. We know people want to secure them in advance and have real control over their flying experience. This will allow them to do that,” said a BA spokesman.

With this new fee and probably others that will follow, BA tries recover after £401m loss last year. Earlier this year, BA decided to no longer offer free meals on short flights and cut luggage allowances.

It is really annoying when any company decides to take advantage of a customer when there is some kind of demand for a product. In this case, the airlines are trying to squeeze money out of the consumer because they are paying rock bottom prices for airline tickets. It’s a funny thing though because these customers are still waiting in airports for delayed flights and sitting on tarmacs waiting for their planes to take off. I should know, I spent over an hour on a tarmac in North Carolina waiting in the past few months. I hate flying on airplanes.
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