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Brand copywriting: what the cautionary tale of aberdeen's three vowels tells us 6 March 2025

Brand copywriting lies behind the names and written identity of many companies. Yet despite extensive efforts, sometimes an attempt at being creative with a company name does not so much jump the shark as pole vault over a whole shiver of Chondrichthyes. Such was the case for financial services company, abrdn plc, or as it is now known after much mockery, aberdeen group.

But before we launch into the reasons for the boomerang reboot, let’s explore what the company was trying to achieve with the new name that was launched to much derision in 2021. In my view, the rebrand was an attempt at simplifying the business name by reducing it to its most essential elements.

Less can indeed be more but sometimes less is just… less. I think the rebrand was inspired by the desire to reinvent the company, to shake off the financial services industry’s sometimes fusty image. A name change so drastic must also have been aimed at standing out, to appear more on trend.

So why didn’t it work? Because, quite simply, a word without vowels – particularly one that is well known in the English language – looks absurd without them. In contrast, a vowel-free word could perhaps work well for a new word, an invented company name, of which there are many.

Yet another problem is also that Aberdeen is also a place name, again one that is well known and well used; a great name for a great city. So the new name actively worked against a word that already enjoyed positive perception. All of this means that the name change doesn’t come across as a reinvention so much as a deprivation of identity; a kind of whittling down that leaves little in its place. The result? A reinvented word that is just a sum of its missing parts, rather than standing on its own merits.

Despite all that, there is a part of me that feels it’s a shame that aberdeen group capitulated to the public response with its re-rebrand or unbrand. It could have been an interesting social experiment to see whether, with time, the name would have become accepted and used. But brand-wise, that was probably too much of a risk to take. The company had already experienced extensive criticism. Plus, a brand should never become a social experiment.

However, it’s important to note that the name hasn’t completely flipped back, having been stripped of its capital letter. This, along with other decapitalised brand names will be a subject for another Green Light Copywriting blog post in due course…

Missing capital letter or not, the change is widely regarded as an improvement. An article on the Motley Fool website even draws a link between the original rebrand and the company’s falling share price, compared with a sudden jump in value since the rebrand went public.

Beyond public perception, I feel happy for aberdeen’s employees. The thought of having to write that company name in emails and documents and leave out the vowels each time seems like it would be overly complicated and frustrating. And perhaps that’s the key to the whole problem: abrdn plc (and it really is hard to type) just didn’t feel easy to read or write.

Because we already know the word Aberdeen, reading, speaking or writing the other version feels like it’s going against our natural instincts. It feels wrong. And that’s something you never want in brand copywriting. Or brnd cpywrtng.