Sometimes our videos are about brand moves we’re really impressed by. This is not that kind of video. Today, Rebeca is talking about Anthem’s (somewhat) recent name change. It’s not pretty!
WHAT WERE THEY THINKING: Anthem’s Name Change
This video originally appeared in LinkedIn
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TRANSCRIPT:
Hey guys, it’s Rebeca with BrandTrue, and I want talk about a name change that happened recently. Sometimes, we’re not ashamed to fan out here in this channel about names that we love. This is not one of them. The health insurance company Anthem has changed their name to Elevance. They’ve changed their name to Elevance. And no shit, I completely forgot, which tells you something about that new name.
Okay, so, I kind of get it. I’ve written about this before. I kind of get it that for health insurance companies, there’s a lot of baggage. Maybe they were trying to move away from/whitewash some bad history, some bad associations people have. But I think that there’s also a huge amount of name recognition, brand equity that they’ve walked away from.
Elevance doesn’t exactly stick in MY brain, obviously, and I think it’s, it doesn’t feel like there’s any power in it. It’s one of those, you know, made up names, like Altria, that feels like you’re hiding something. Whereas Anthem, granted, they might’ve had things that they were trying to correct, but it’s a very strong word. An Anthem, a call to action. It’s really a shame that they walked away from that.
Anyway, my even bigger complaint is that their healthcare business within their corporation, they’ve also renamed in the same move. They’ve named it Carelon, Healthcare… Carelon. It’s just so bad! It’s just so ham-handed and bad, and I just wanted to complain about it and so I am. Let me know what you think. Thanks. Bye!
