Corporate bullying is good
Companies have no feelings and should be freely abused
Is any class of people so full of shit as senior managers? Okay, fine: politicians, estate agents, probably journalists. But there is a kind of cluelessness that seems reserved for corporate high-risers. As the Peter Principle suggests, people are often promoted until they become unsuited to their jobs. And once in that rarefied atmosphere, they become so unacquainted with shit that they start to talk it. Welcome to the layer cake, son.
There are too many great cases of faecal utterances to choose from, but I’ve a personal – and more importantly, timely – favourite to share in the wisdom of one Peter Branner. A longstanding financier, Branner joined the investment company lately known as Abrdn in May 2023. In his capacity as chief investment officer, he helps oversee half a trillion pounds, some of it no doubt honestly earned. He must be somewhat good at his job, but I only became aware of him when he floated the concept of ‘corporate bullying’.
Speaking to Financial News, Branner moaned that the obscure scribblers in the business press kept making fun of his company for its stupid name. Ever since the company suffered a self-inflicted ‘disemvowelment’ in April 2021, shedding its Standard Life Insurance legacy and several letters in ‘Aberdeen’, spiteful journalists had mocked it relentlessly. Even the Financial Times was taking the piss, exhorting readers to Lv Abrdn aln!
Some of us pretended to have practical complaints about the name, including that it read as ‘a burden’, which was certainly true in reputational terms. This is because journalists hold humanities degrees and can cover their prejudices with fancy lingo. Mostly we disliked it because it was butt ugly, the work of ‘brand consultants’ deranged on TikTok who in previous generations would have dismissed, correctly, out of hand. As one respondent to a 2021 poll put it, the rebrand was an “act of corporate insanity”.
Branner fairly described the comments as “childish”, though of course children are famous for saying correct things that adults are too polite to mention. Then he said something genuinely stupid:
“Would you do that with an individual? How would you look at a person who makes fun of your name day in day out? It’s probably not ethical to do it. But apparently with companies it is different.”
Of course, it is entirely socially acceptable to make fun of white people’s names, and the city that Abrdn took its name from is as pasty as an Irish wake. But even if this wasn’t true, it rather ignores the fact that corporations aren’t people and don’t have feelings. You can insult them as much as you like, all day on the internet, and there’s nothing the butthurt execs can do about it.
Worse still for Branner, it turns out the bullies have been vindicated by history. With the share price of ‘a burden’ falling by about half since the rebrand, its mastermind and CEO Stephen Bird flew the coop last May. Then last week his replacement Jason Windsor reverted to ‘aberdeen’ – capital letters being the sacrifice you have to make to get Shoreditch brand consultants to leave your office. “This is a pragmatic decision marking a new phase for the organisation,” Windsor said, roughly translated as: “My predecessor was bad at his job.”
It is a victory for attractive names at a time when the uggos are on the rise. Tech companies have led the charge, but the crime has been widespread: CamelCase (eBay), mangled spelling (tumblr) and even compound words that would embarrass a German (PricewaterhouseCoopers, mercifully changed to PwC). They promised to move fast and break things, and that began with the English language.
More importantly, Aberdeen’s name restoration is a sign that we can successfully bully corporations intent on offending good taste in pursuit of the young and trendy. As it wrapped itself in the moniker of a tech start-up, presumably cutting its hair and getting a few body piercings, Aberdeen failed to understand: you’re in finance and are supposed to be boring.
Many are the legacy brands who have made similar missteps. Only a few years ago Bud Light tried to pivot away from straight white dudes in favour of the queer yoot, which led to Kid Rock shooting some crates with a rifle and sales tanking. It’s understandable to a point. Senior managers looking at line-goes-down graphs are liable to reach for anything that might stem the bleeding, especially if their customers are literally dying of old age.
No doubt there’s some ideological impulse that favours young, attractive punters over the decaying middle aged, but it can readily be explained by raw cynicism. Young people are generally more biddable. They often haven’t established their consumer preferences across different products and services. And if you can get them when they’re young you could have 50 years of #BrandLoyalty.
I can’t pretend I know how to solve the problem, but it doesn’t change the fact that many senior managers are engaged in a kind of cultural terrorism, and they should be stopped. Only last November, Jaguar decided to dynamite almost a century of British motoring history by pivoting their brand towards brightly-dressed asexuals. Even as somebody who thinks cars should probably be banned in cities, it is hard not to take this iconoclasm personally. Anyone who makes decisions this bad deserves to be picked on.