Can a brand be bullied and should it care?

In a recent interview with a finance industry title, Abrdn’s chief investment officer Peter Branner channelled the language of the playground, complaining of “corporate bullying” by the media since the much-pilloried 2019 rebrand that removed its vowels.

At the time, one financial commentator hailed the rebrand by Wolff Olins, as “up there with the most calamitous corporate rebrands in history”. And ridicule reached the pages of broadsheet newspapers and the desk of Have I Got News For You.

Looking good on TikTok is one thing, being impossible to pronounce is another, mused Furthr content director Andy Pemberton in a reaction piece for Campaign.

But back to Branner. He makes the argument that the attention is unethical and, by labelling criticism as “bullying”, has indicated that media jibes can create sensitivities in the boardroom.

But by complaining about the commentary, is he missing the point? After all, what is a bold rebrand if not a move to capture attention?

Perhaps it was a bit of a rough ride in the months immediately following Abrdn’s launch. There was some intense mockery online, with social media comics and clickbait titles alike getting creative with the organisation’s sudden loss of vowels.

But in the long run, does this matter? It got people talking about the change. And most of the criticism came from bystanders in search of “likes”, not the target audience of the change, nor stakeholders driving the long term plan for the organisation.

While those with intimate knowledge of rebrands are au fait with the very logical reasons for them and methodical processes organisations take to decide such overhauls, it’s unrealistic to expect every social media user to be the same. And if we consider the reasons behind Abrdn’s change, the scale of the response could be seen as a certain marker for its success.

Back to the boardroom

Exploring what the original brief for the rebrand might have been reveals the reasons behind removing the vowels in the name.

The old branding tied Standard Life Aberdeen intimately to its Scottish city namesake and its creative embedded this, in many ways presenting it as a local firm. The new brand, however, propels it to a global stage with a more digitally fluent brand architecture that continues to pay homage to the city in which it was founded.

It’s clear when assessing the aesthetic of the new brand that the brief contained direction to reposition it as an organisation that is future facing and able to serve consumers outside the UK. Did it achieve this? I’d be inclined to say yes, and wouldn’t be surprised to see it performing well against these metrics.

Criticism of the brand failed to take these intentions into consideration. Elon Musk faced a similar reception to his rebranding of Twitter to X. Users and onlookers labelled the change stupid and a loss to the heritage of the leading social media forum. This criticism failed to recognise that Musk’s aspirations for the site were actually in transforming Twitter into an “everything app”, which brand X could facilitate while Twitter would keep it stuck in the social media space.

If no one’s talking, no one’s looking

The logical aspirations behind the rebrand should grow a thicker skin for those feeling targeted by corporate bullying within Abrdn. Taking it back to our school days, one of the most useful life lessons we learn is that not everyone can like you — and, if everybody likes you, you aren’t standing up for anything that matters. This holds true for brands: branding is as much about deciding what you are not as what you are.

The rebrand captured headlines, propelled the brand into the consciousness of otherwise unreachable consumers and got people thinking about what Abrdn actually stands for and does. That it didn’t please everyone is not necessarily a bad thing. If we consider the brand like a magnet, we expect some to be attracted to it and others to be repelled — if this wasn’t the case, the brand wouldn’t be working properly. It wouldn’t be positioned in a way that mattered to people.

If you can’t beat them, join them

In today’s era of memeability, no one wins by telling tales. The social media landscape has made anything and everyone vulnerable to mockery, and brands are the last thing people are going to feel sympathy for in this arena.

Instead of taking it personally, brands have two options.

First, ignore the backlash. It’s certainly the easier option. Giving more airtime to critics will extend the conversation. Over time, people move on (they don’t care that much about a rebrand, after all). Think of the initial responses to Facebook’s transition to Meta? We don’t hear murmurs about that anymore, and consumers have allowed the brand to continue its evolution quietly. I’m sure the consumers would similarly lose interest in the Abrdn rebrand, and allow the strategy behind it to continue evolving in the background.

Alternatively, there’s the “engage and entertain” playbook. Instead of decrying the criticism, the spotlight gives Abrdn the opportunity to double down on what its new positioning means to them — and even inject an element of humour. Jibes are a two-way street, and one that brands like Ryanair are speeding down. Rather than ignoring its online trolls, it trolls them back. Understanding that its offering to consumers is the cheapest on the airline market, it has space to hit back at its critics for complaints about its inflight accommodation. In fact, through responding, Ryanair enhances its brand positioning every time it tags a complainer.

Now, this approach might not be right for Abrdn. It might not have the inclination or capacity to start responding to every social media post that mocks its lack of vowels. But taking ownership of the conversation and having a bit of fun could help shift the narrative while enhancing its positioning as a more modern brand.

My advice would be to recognise the mockery for what it is: an emblem of how online discourse has shifted. A brand can choose to use its time in the headlines as an opportunity to double down on what the brand stands for. Or else choose to stay silent, comfortable in the fact that bold moves always ruffle some feathers. At the end of the day, the rebrand itself should do the talking.

Can you bully a brand? Yes. Does it matter? Only if you let it.

First published in Campaign.