Two words: British Rail. It’s pretty obvious what that stands for. Even for someone with the briefest command of the English language, it wouldn’t take them long to work it out.
What then, does One or First Capital Connect stand for? Not so obvious; perhaps a bank or some other kind of financial service? Well, One and First Capital Connect are actually the train companies that this writer regularly uses.
First Capital Connect: A bank account or a railway company?
I say I “use them”, but I’m sure that they would say that I “facilitate their services” or something as equally pretentious or pointless as that. Indeed, witness these gems from the First Capital Connect website:
- ‘…a new company bringing fresh ideas and a determination to improve your journey experience’
- ‘we see the new franchise as an opportunity to develop real, tangible benefits for customers across the board’
- ‘…deliver the levels of customer service that will transform your journey experience’
Not only are they promising to ‘improve my journey experience’ they say that they will ‘transform it’ too. And as for the ‘real, tangible benefits’, what exactly are they? Let’s get to grips with reality: You are a TRAIN company. That’s it, nothing else. So please, drop the flowery language.
Now, and I believe I’m speaking for most commuters here, the only things that people want from a train company is for it to provide regular services that are on time, preferably not overcrowded and hopefully at a reasonable price.
None of these issues were mentioned on First Capital Connect’s website or in any of their promotional material. So it is just another case of a company making promises that are as empty as their name sounds.
Although the name First Capital Connect may sound like a type of bank account, you do have to give them some credit as at least their title is composed of words found in the Oxford English Dictionary.
So we now turn to those companies who have spent millions on corporate re-banding, only to see their established names transform into a mixture of Greek and Latin gobbledegook. For example, The Post Office became Consignia and British Steel became Corus. Of these it was the name change to Consignia that was the biggest disaster.
Back in 2001, in an attempt to cure The Post Office’s ailing woes, their new boss decided on a name change in an attempt to loose the supposed stigma of lazy, militant postmen that was apparently responsible for the company’s decline.
At a reported cost of £2 million the name Consignia was born; the name originating from the Latin word “to consign”. Within two years, the name was dropped, the company reverting to a much more sensible Royal Mail Group Plc. The only thing that it was “consigned” to was the bin, the name spectacularly backfiring on its creators and becoming synonymous with the company’s woes.
Consignia: Consigned to the rubbish bin
Names such as Consignia originate when marketing people decide that by taking words from the Greek and Latin languages and combining them, they will create a name that is dynamic and cutting edge. These are the sort of ideas that come from people who are brought up in a business world where pretentious promotional writing is the ruling language.
Publicity people, press officers, spin doctors, whatever you want to call them; their job is to disguise the truth. Think about it: when was the last time you saw an advertisement from a major corporation that made real statement about, for example, their trains running on time? You don’t. Instead you get empty promises about things like ‘real tangible benefits across the board’.
The scary thing is that these people are in control of the thousands of advertisements that we see every day. They have a lot of power over our lives and affect us all even if we are not conscious of it. But it is time to fight back: next time you see such an advertisement, do not be fooled by it. Instead realise that its promises are as empty as the stupid name of the company that paid for it.
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