Saturday 27 June 2015

Stupid company names: Asendia

Asendia ia a parcel/post service owned jointly by French and Swiss post offices.

But what does the name allude to/sound like?

1. "I send you"?

2. "Ascend" (with a "c")? Which is a bit inappropriate, you don't just want your post to go up without coming down again. Unless your addressee lives on a cloud or a high mountain.

3. "Arse end, yeah"?

11 comments:

View from the Solent said...

I read it as 'Arse end, yer'

Mark Wadsworth said...

VFTS, can you put that phrase into a meaningful sentence?

Woodsy42 said...

Course he can, I'll do it for him - Put your brakes on too hard while lane hogging and someone will arse end yer.

Mark Wadsworth said...

W42, aha thanks. I forgot it was a verb as well as a noun.

Edward Spalton said...

Shades of Consignia! Remember that?
And some advertising whizz kids have been paid huge fees to think up these drivelly non words - to be paid for by the customers eventually, of course!

Funnily enough this non word most reminded me of a lift ( which the Yanks call an elevator). I think the Spanish is something like asensor.

In one very pleasant Irish hotel, the lift was labelled " The rising room".

There was also a bottle of whiskey on the self-serve breakfast bar, to pour a tot over your porridge and get the day off to a good start.

Amazing where a train of thought can lead one!


Mark Wadsworth said...

ED, good point, it is probably one that the people who invented Consignia rejected but kept on the spares pile in case some other bunch of idiots came along asking for a fancy name.

And it would be a good name for a lift company (see my option 2).

James Higham said...

I was thinking that too. How did they get the name - a brainstorming session? Or a raffle?

Edward Spalton said...

The first time I recall this silly fashion becoming prominent was when the Distillers Company changed its name to Diageo .

Then I recalled that there had been some hanky panky with share dealings by Guinness directors who were interested in a merger and the name Ernest Saunders sprang to mind. He, I believe, entered a plea for a reduced sentence because he was claimed to be suffering from Alzheimer's (an incurable disease) but made a unique recovery of a sort previously unknown to medical science after his release.

Whether somebody similarly afflicted thought of the silly new company name, I am not sure - but it's a possible explanation.

Another unfavourite of mine is AVIVA which did perfectly well as the Norwich Union and, of course, there is the bus company ARRIVA although I have not yet come across one called DEPARTA .

Mark Wadsworth said...

JH, or a good scrabble hand?

Ed, Diageo is the famous one, but at least they stuck to their guns and are still using it. It almost seems normal now.

As to Saunders' miraculous recovery, there are lots of examples of this.

Good idea re DEPARTA, why don't you suggest it to one of their rivals?

Bayard said...

Diageo always reminds me of that dreadful song that started "D. I. S. C. O....."

Macheath said...

I can't help feeling there's a team from 'The Apprentice' behind it somewhere.