Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Did 'Ad Age' kill the name "Synarchy"?

You may have seen yesterday that the new name for WPP Group's Dell-dedicated agency is Enfatico, instead of Synarchy. Now the question is, "Did the name change because of what happened after the name was leaked, or was it never all that definite anyway?" Fortunately for Ad Age, its initial story did leave an out, stating, "WPP could change direction if the name doesn't pass legal muster or translate well into the various international locales in which it operates." What it didn't say, of course, was that the company might also steer clear of the name if it was linked to something, like, say, Nazis, a connection that I believe was first made by the writers of that story, who pointed out that the term synarchy's Wikipedia entry, " ... quotes from a book on Vichy France that had an account of French industrialists who saw Nazi Germany as alternative to Communism." The blogosphere noticed, and now, the unit has a new name, Enfatico.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

If your hunches are true, then Enfatico as a company is doomed. If they cave into online remarks about their own logo, how will they respond to the demands of a client that has already demonstrated a penchant for shitty work? My God, how will they respond when Bob Garfield critiques the first creative work? It also shows the bad job Enfatico’s communications people are doing. How did they let Synarchy leak out to begin with? That said, I must admit the logo looks OK, and their website is not bad—simple and clean.

Anonymous said...

Hi Catherine:

And I thought I was the only one who noticed! And of course they didn't even mention the change of course.

TO'B