
The brief
The re-brand of Norwich Union to Aviva was a true multi-media, multi-channel event. To support the extensive TV campaign, Copy House was commissioned to write a number of online articles helping to communicate the rationale behind the re-brand, and to clearly establish the new brand tone-of-voice.
The copywriting…
What’s in a name?
Back in the early nineties when the Internet was still in its infancy, two Stanford University PhD students built a website to help them bookmark other web pages they liked. The students’ names were Jerry Yang and David Filo and they called their website “Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web”.
The “Guide” listed web pages under a variety of categories, and these lists soon became popular with people searching for useful websites on particular topics. In fact the whole idea turned out to be rather clever indeed, and pretty soon Jerry and David’s little website wasn’t so little.
The name “Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web” was perfect when the site was used just by people who knew all about Jerry and David. But as they began to attract visitors from around the world they decided it was time to come up with something a little punchier, something with more impact…. and so Yahoo! was born.
Of course corporate name changes are nothing new. When an organisation expands beyond its original borders, when a brand goes truly global, a new name can help to engage with customers across diverse international markets. That’s why on 1st June this year Norwich Union will officially become Aviva.
Why “Aviva”? It’s fresh, dynamic and memorable. And just like Yahoo!, www.aviva.co.uk is a whole lot easier to type into a browser – which is something Jerry and David should definitely approve of.