Accenture® Name Story

 

 

Name Awards Blog

 

When Andersen Consulting decided to change its name to Accenture, this came as a great surprise to many people. We are sure that no other name change provoked so many calls to naming agencies from the media as this one, and we have been pondering that fact for a while. Of course, now that the original Andersen Accounting firm is but a shell of its former self following the Enron debacle, they must all be heaving a giant sigh of relief over at Accenture.

But what was wrong with the name Andersen Consulting? Nothing. It had worked for years, had enormous worldwide brand equity. But the reason for the change was simple. It was part of their international high court "divorce" decree from Andersen Accounting. Why the surprise from the public and the media about the new name? Probably simple human conditioning. Traditionalists were all used to some founders name(s) over the door, even though that really constrains growing a brand today, especially in this Internet age.

How did they come up with this name? After all, hundred of offices and partners worldwide probably wanted to have a say. So, of course, they hired a big branding agency Landor Associates (money not being as important as time and legal/linguistics clearance), to run the process for them. We will never publicly know what great names the agency came up with, as this time the winning name was submitted as part of a competition by some employee from Scandinavia. (Aside: We all know Scandinavians are very multilingual, but not many US companies would have such a person name their company).

For the employees of the company, the new name not only provided a clear picture of their direction and position, with a unique new word that could be trademarked worldwide, but it also provided some continuity from the old world. Did you notice that Andersen Consulting Corp. was surely often abbreviated to ACC, especially on internal documents, and that it is the first 3 letters of the new name?

Motto: It pays to do it right.