To the point: Salting without pepper

Especially not if the attention is negative in nature. After all, most of those who add their two cents think Salt is stupid. And the rest are not interested in the fact that Orange has been renamed. The main thing is that their cell phone works. But beware: people associate Salt with slightly higher prices. And even those who don't really give a damn should care. Brand experts are amazed. A few years ago, a lot of money was invested in building up the Orange brand. And now a new, even sillier name has been added.

It is understandable that the mobile communications provider wanted to save the license payments to France Télécom. But, to quote Herbert Grönemeyer: "... it really doesn't have to be him! What's the point?" Couldn't there have been better alternatives to Salt? Couldn't something more crisp be found among the 737 possible brand names that the group evaluated? I suspect that, once again, too many cooks have added salt to the soup. Audi, for example, was once called "Horch" after its founder August Horch. When he left the company after disagreements with the CFO, a new name was sought. In 1910, a high school student in Zwickau found a new name in the form of Audi, the Latin translation of "horch" or, more commonly, "listen. Orange in Latin? Arausio. Better than Salt. The big brands Haribo and Adidas carry their founders in the label: Hans Riegel, Bonn, and Adolf Adi Dassler. So how about XaNi - for Xavier Niel - or Jojö - for Johan Andsjö? A bit silly. Aldi also works with the name of the founding brothers: Albrecht Discount. "Orange is now called XaTel." Not bad at all. And reminiscent of Natel, as many Swiss still affectionately call their mobile. Or if it absolutely has to be a spice, Pepper or Chili certainly pop more than Salt. Above all, the company would have only had to darken the brand color a few nuances instead of having to change from cheerful orange to drab black and white. Besides, everyone would have known how to pronounce the name.

And then Orange also botched the communication: Last Friday, one day after the launch, an ad appeared in Blick with the text "Something new is coming on Monday." Nothing, dear salt shakers, is older than yesterday's news ... And on the Internet, subjects with the text "Salt. is now called Salt." appeared. Some people tried to understand the message. Without success. On the other hand, the Franz & René agency had a lot of laughs and sympathy on its side with its quickly placed ad for Sel des Alpes - "Sel des Alpes remains Sel des Alpes".

The icing on the cake: Orange customers received an SMS on Monday with the text "Orange is now called Salt. In the next few days you will also see our new name on your cell phone." As if it were a huge deal to swap names in the system. Often, one pinch too many is enough to make the whole soup inedible.

Well, maybe the mobile provider will change its name again in three or four years. Then they'll have a little practice. Or it will be like Omo and Raider: Omo is now called Omo again. Twix is called Raider again. Salt wasn't so great - unfortunately.

Anne-Friederike Heinrich, Editor-in-Chief
f.heinrich@werbewoche.ch