TODAY'S RAMBLINGS . . . would still stink to high heaven. I'm very much in a business state of mind this week, and that leads me to go off on shitty - or even not that shitty - companies that try to change the conversation by going nuclear. They opt to dump a well-established (but perhaps tarnished) corporate brand and come up with . . . something else.
What does that look like? I am very glad you asked.
Phillip-Morris -> Altria Cancer sticks to cheese, anyone? Being a conglomerate doesn't change your decades of lying and a wake of death. So while they spun off Kraft years ago, please remember the core business when you hear the word "Altria". Lucky Goldstar -> LG I am old enough for a lot of things, and one thing is remembering back to a day when products from Korea were junk. Even early Hyundai cars weren't very good. And in consumer electronics, let's just say the name "Lucky Goldstar" on a TV didn't inspire the confidence of say, "Sony". But change that to "LG"? The rest is history and that name change definitely worked. It also helped when they stopped making junk - ask me about the LG TV's in KC & The Sunshine Band's Hawaii condo someday . . .
Andersen Consulting -> Accenture My God, Arthur Andersen used to be the gold standard of the big accounting firms. They expanded and became Andersen Consulting. Fine. But then they helped the good ol' boys at Enron kinda sorta fabricate a business model that came complete with non-existent yet giant profits. Who remembers that now when the name Accenture is mentioned? This one worked, too. Google -> Alphabet Yawn. Many probably don't even know Alphabet owns Google, Gmail, YouTube, Waymo, and probably one or two other things. They also created and are the stewards of the Android operating system. That all used to be "Google", but they wanted that to be a search, etc. brand, not the whole enchilada. File this under "nobody cares". At least until Alphabet is broken up.
Square -> Block I actually don't mind this one, given that I am Mr. Blockchain now. You see, the thoughtful yet spacey owner of the fintech company Square, Jack Dorsey, is a huge advocate of the future of blockchains. Many are predicting he is going to make big moves in the burgeoning (and histrionic) "Web3" space - so yeah, not bad.
Facebook -> Meta Lipstick on a pig? I feel Mark Zuckerberg is among the most dangerous people in the world. He is unaccountable to anyone (read up on the classes of stock at the company), the algorithms ruin lives and incite riots, and they simply acquire companies or straight-out steal ideas such to appear innovative. This changes nothing. Please delete Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp from your phone and computer today.
Fun fact: my wife's law firm handled the copyright and trademark for Meta. It was done under the strictest of secrecy and the billings for that aspect of the name change alone ran into the millions of dollars. What a great use of capital. FROM THE UNWASHED MASSES I want to thank Kevin Monza for his input on my NFT endeavor and Clufff & KLUF. His input was that the URL for Charlie's NFT Collection wasn't clear or obvious. Here it is, in spades:
There's still time to bid, although we'll be re-starting the auction to coincide with Monday's formal launch. I will have some exciting news to share then, too.
Until then, another taste of the brilliance of Charles Clough (hey, would you rather have this, or pictures of me on vacation somewhere?). This is "364" - which is not currently a part of the NFT collection. If you like this one, I can probably arrange for it to be yours at a reasonable price. It is a signed original 8" x 10" painting.
Thank you to any one that is reading this newsletter.
KLUF Wow does this one f'ing rock. Today's subject goes "Beyond Good and Evil", so here is The Cult with that rager of a Killer album (is that a double positive?) of the same name. This is on my all-time list. I wonder what else is on that list?
