First AT&T caught the rebranding bug, then Ford Motor Co., and now Federated Department Stores Inc. and St. Paul Travelers Cos. are the latest Fortune 500 companies to announce brand changes.
While the AT&T and Ford announcements were more radical, Federated's name change is more an evolution than a revolution because the Cincinnati-based retailer is simply changing its name to Macy's Group. Considering the Macy's department store chain contributes 90% of the company's revenue, and Federated has dumped Filene's, Marshall Fields and its other legacy chains except Bloomingdale's, the name change is logical. If shareholders approve the change, the renaming will take place on June 1.
Similarly, St. Paul Travelers is dumping the St. Paul name and reverting back to The Travelers Cos. However, the new Travelers will remain headquartered in St. Paul, Minn. rather than New York, home of the original Travelers. The name change takes effect today, and was made possible by Citigroup's decision to retire the use of the Travelers Umbrella logo, which it inherited from its ownership of Travelers. Citi's change allowed the insurer to reclaim its old logo, and hence its old brand.
However, unlike the AT&T and Ford rebrandings that led to the retirement of relatively recent brand names, Cingular and 500 respectively, Federated and St. Paul Travelers are retiring names that date back to the 19th century — interestingly for names that also date back as long.—Matthew Wurtzel
See Federated story from Forbes
See Travelers story from Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal
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