The Importance of a Well-Thought Company Name

After discussing with some people what possible reason could motivate the Canadian banking arm of ING to rename itself to Tangerine after being sold to Scotia Bank, I noticed first hand how much the impact of a company name can have on how people view it.

 

As I currently bank with ING and most of the changes are subtle, I didn't really think anything of the name change. I got some notices in the mail informing me of it and I thought it was a bit weird of a bank renaming itself to the same name as a fruit, but since I see a lot of weird things on the internet I didn't really think too much about it. I left the notice on my desk for a while and when someone pointed it out to me why ING would do that, I couldn't really think of a decent reason.



Usually when you think of banks, they are named after regions or in the case of ING, they developed a brand name over time. This encourages you to trust them to handle the money you deposit as we work hard for our money. They tend to be conservative as no one would deposit their money with someone they think might squander it, so the business is very professional.

The thing I noticed with Tangerine, is even after the name change (I believe) they still have the same employees, and most of the same management. They are basically the exact same company they were a month ago but with a different name.

The difference is just by changing their name, I don't think I would have trusted my money to a bank called Tangerine at the same time I first used ING. It sounds more like a startup company than a long standing bank. I would be more under the impression that they would focus more on growth and there is a chance I could lose all my money with them. Just by that simple name change.

The company likely wanted to stand out by choosing a name such as Tangerine in the conservative world of banking. How things will work out over time, it  will be interesting to see and I don't even know what to predict. More and more companies are re-branding in an effort to stand out more for the younger crowd and maybe in 5 years, there will be more banks like this and I will look back on this post wondering why I didn't have an open mind. Or maybe the banking sector is just not open enough to this type of branding quite yet, but I guess time will tell.

When a young person myself second guesses why they are banking with a company called Tangerine even though they are nearly the same company they were a month ago, I am a bit skeptical this will turn out well. I guess I will check back in 5 years and see how this goes and I may follow up on this later.