MONDAY: PwC Consulting, but taking flak, until IBM put it out of its misery

New: Monday, a name and logo (blue rectangle not included)

Launched: Announced June 9, 2002 (a Sunday);

Unlaunched... cancelled July 30 (a Tuesday) via IBM's acquisition announcement.

Story in brief:
"PwC Consulting" (PwCC Ltd.) was a placeholder name for this spinoff from PriceWaterhouseCoopers. In seeking a clean-break name, CEO Brennerman chose the 'Accenture' strategy -- a clean and total break. In selecting the arbitrary name "Monday," he sought to be different, fresh and relevant. It took courage.

Credits:
C.E.O. - Greg Brenneman
Naming and identity design - UK-based Wolff Olins, now an Omnicon subsidiary

First Impressions:
Nice try, Mr. Brennerman. But sorry; we can't let you own "Monday." It's too important to the rest of us.

An 'arbitrary' name (real word, arbitrarily applied in an unrelated category) can work well, but only if it is always clear it's a name, when seen in the contexts in which it must function. "Apple," for example, seen in a business context, will seldom be mistaken for a single fruit.
But "monday" is too much an everyday word; in order to communicate we all need its meaning to remain precise and specific. If I tell you "the Monday team is working on it" or "it's on the Monday schedule" and I'm talking about the day and not the consultants, I want no ambiguity.

With time, money and sound tactics it could nevertheless be made to work. Step one is to provide context through nomenclature, like using the legal-form designator (Ltd., Inc.) possibly with a formal-name addition (in the first text use)... Monday Consulting Corp. for example. But Monday says it has "not yet decided whether it'll have a designation of Ltd, Co. or Corp. after the name." That's a dead giveaway that this new name had not yet been thought through.

The logo is another giveaway. Because its graphic distinctiveness is a verbal device (the colon) and because it is used as a word rather than as a graphic signature in the launch advertising ("MONDAY: WAKE UP EARLY" etc.) its creators appeared to view it as a word, not a graphic, and as a springboard for puns and wordplay (very British, that). That makes it more a campaign idea than an enduring identifier... and deprives it of the gravitas one would hope to see in a consulting firm of stature.

Call it Monday morning quarterbacking; but because "Monday" would create continuing confusion, Monday jokes won't go away as time passes. Employees would 'live' the name as an ongoing embarrassment. Best to rescind the error quickly and cleanly... as IBM has done.

"Accenture" looks better every day. We like Braxton too (Deloitte Consulting, advised by Interbrand) and await with interest the Braxton design work and a pending name announcement from KPMG Consulting.