ACCENTURE: No longer Andersen Consulting, with "accent on the future"

New: Accenture name and logo

Launched: January 1, 2001

Story in brief:
In its bitter separation from Arthur Andersen in August 2000, an arbitrator allowed Andersen Consulting some 90 days to change its name, eliminating any vestige of the former name. They came pretty close, both in time and outcome (some feel 'AC'centure is not accidental, but no formal objection has been heard.)

Employees contributed 2,700 name ideas, Landor Associates added a few thousand and fortunately for morale the winner was an employee (Kim Petersen, a Dane in the Oslo office). Landor designed a simple wordmark, lower-case 'a' so you know it's a logo, accented by a greater-than symbol.

Credits:
C.E.O. - Joe W. Forehand
Identity design - Landor Associates

First Impressions:
Accenture has replaced Verizon as the name people love to denigrate. Example: "Sounds like a felony, five to ten with good behavior." I disagree. Like Verizon, Accenture is a perfectly functional name with good associations. Make allowance for the scarcity of available names: Accenture generated 5,500 and searched 550 to choose among 10 'probably available' finalists. We'll all soon like it.
The logo design is direct, simple and functional (but is based on a font that may look dated pretty quickly).