Every Fortune 500 company, sooner or later, faces some massive PR crisis. Very few change the name of the company, their brands, or their products. It’s worth thinking about why they don’t.
Partly this is because of the recognition heuristic: much of the value of the company and brand is simply in the name recognition in the minds of consumers, investors, suppliers, and workers—even apart from the emotional valence (positive of negative) attached to the company/brand.
EA has built up a moderate amount of recognition worldwide as a ‘brand’ of ethical thinking and cause prioritization. If we abandon the EA name, we lose the recognition benefits in millions of brains.
Valences attached to a name (like EA) fluctuate a lot over time, but recognition tends to remain. Remember in the 1990s, Microsoft and Apple were widely vilified for anti-competitive practices, but they’re still both leading tech companies with largely positive associations. Political parties can be tarnished by corrupt or incompetent leaders, but their name recognition remains.
Rob—I strongly agree with this.
Every Fortune 500 company, sooner or later, faces some massive PR crisis. Very few change the name of the company, their brands, or their products. It’s worth thinking about why they don’t.
Partly this is because of the recognition heuristic: much of the value of the company and brand is simply in the name recognition in the minds of consumers, investors, suppliers, and workers—even apart from the emotional valence (positive of negative) attached to the company/brand.
EA has built up a moderate amount of recognition worldwide as a ‘brand’ of ethical thinking and cause prioritization. If we abandon the EA name, we lose the recognition benefits in millions of brains.
Valences attached to a name (like EA) fluctuate a lot over time, but recognition tends to remain. Remember in the 1990s, Microsoft and Apple were widely vilified for anti-competitive practices, but they’re still both leading tech companies with largely positive associations. Political parties can be tarnished by corrupt or incompetent leaders, but their name recognition remains.