Bankstone News has heard of being welcomed to someone’s home. We’ve heard of being welcome to another Garibaldi™ biscuit. We’ve even heard of being welcome to our opinion, but would we kindly keep it to ourselves.
But never before have we heard we’re welcome to somebody’s new name. “Hello I’m John, but from now on I’m going to call myself Brian. Although if you’d like to have the name Brian, that’s fine by me.”
Confused? We were when an advertisement popped up on the Post Magazine website displaying some apparently random lowercase letters in the Hideous Din San Serif™ typeface ringed by lots of narrow overlapping circular lines in a selection of very now colours above a puzzling message that read:
“Welcome to the new name for Fortis.”
Next thing we know, it’s everywhere, this unpronounceable name with the dayglo coffee mug stains. You may have seen it. They’ve spent enough promoting it. But what on earth does it all mean?*
We think it’s something to do with Fortis wanting a crazy name near the front of the alphabet like, Axa and Aviva. Sadly, Aga was already taken, though they could have had Agaga. Or what about Ageaega?
When will the name change take place? Basically sometime between now and “the end of the first quarter of 2011.” Hard to be sure though as ageas seem a bit confused about the whole past-present-future thing, describing themselves as ‘a new insurance company since 1824’ and claiming outlandishly that ‘we love the future.’
Just in case we get too carried away with all the hype though, ageas are quick to bring us down to earth with the distinctly deflatory launch line: ‘New name, same company, same people.’ Oh well.
*We do know really. We’re only asking for rhetorical effect! Click here for the must-read full story behind the exciting new name for Fortis and a handy guide to its proper pronunciation. Put simply, it’s like this. Do say Ah, Jeez! (notice how the designers have created a visual elision between the e and a to make that clear). Don’t say A Gay Ass. That’s just rude.
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