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Remember When We Were Consignia?
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POSTMAN
- SITE ADMINISTRATOR
- Posts: 32724
- Joined: 07 Aug 2006, 03:19
- Gender: Male
I Wrote-During Covid-Which is still relevant now
It's good to get these types of threads, the ridiculous my manager said bollox, so we can reassure ourselves that while the world is falling apart, Royal Mail managers are still being the low-life C***S they have always been.
My BFF Clash
The daily grind of having to argue your case with an intellectual pigmy of a line manager is physically and emotionally draining.
It's good to get these types of threads, the ridiculous my manager said bollox, so we can reassure ourselves that while the world is falling apart, Royal Mail managers are still being the low-life C***S they have always been.
My BFF Clash
The daily grind of having to argue your case with an intellectual pigmy of a line manager is physically and emotionally draining.
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TrueBlueTerrier
- FORUM ADMINISTRATOR
- Posts: 72594
- Joined: 30 Dec 2006, 10:29
- Gender: Male
- Location: On my couch
Consignia: Nine letters that spelled fiasco
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2002480.stm
By Mike Verdin
BBC News Online business reporter
A duffer. A howling waste of money.
The most ruinous decision since the biblical scam that saw Esau swap his birthright for a bowl of stew.
Think "Post Office Group", think trust, honour, gritty postmen braving blizzards to save a child's smile.
It's got consign in it. It's got a link with insignia, so there is this kind of royalty-ish thing
Think "Consignia", the name which replaced it. Think, um, Roman general? Footballer? Tummy bug?
"A good name is better than precious ointment" - Ecclesiastes 7,1, to return to the biblical theme.
And Consignia, judging by public outcry, ranks a poor second to a dab of cabbage water.
Even Allan Leighton, Consignia's new chairman, abhors the brand and has pledged its demise.
So who pulled off the most notorious ever Post Office robbery - that of the name itself?
Seated before BBC News Online is Keith Wells, who led consultancy Dragon Brands on the two-year trail which ended with the dreaded four-syllable word.
"What the hell did you think you were doing?"
So Mr Wells addresses himself to open the interview.
And thus begins a story of three silos, three p's, three overlapping ellipses, several MPs, lots of focus groups and, oh lordy, Stephen Byers.
Mail domination
What Mr Wells says he was doing the day Post Office directors were told of the fated nine-letter word was to help prepare the company for a new era of semi-independence and diverse operations.
Allan Leighton is to ditch the Consignia brand
The Post Office Group was being repackaged as a plc, at arm's length from its sole shareholder - the government.
Also apparent was that the firm had travelled some distance from its 300-year-old roots as a domestic, mail-only concern. It boasted logistics and customer call centre operations, and was planning acquisitions abroad.
"We were researching hard into what this organisation called the Post Office was facing," Mr Wells says.
Postal workers, MPs, clients, customers and businesspeople were interviewed as Dragon sought to define the organisation's "desired reputation".
'Silo thinking'
What Dragon discovered was an organisation steeped in imagery of trust, honour, blizzard-braving valour, etc.
It was also wallowing in confusion about what its various arms - post offices, Parcelforce, Royal Mail - actually did.
Confusion among the public, at least.
Internally, staff seemed well able to define operational boundaries, and consistently to ignore the work of other divisions.
"There was this silo thinking - 'we are Royal Mail, we are Parcelforce'," Mr Wells says.
Dragon dreamed of a banner beneath which postal workers could unite.
Of a single thread which could bind the UK postal trinity into a seamless entity capable of addressing e-business, call centres and abroad on top.
"What we needed was something that went above that, to help pull all the bits together."
Famous names
And what brands the group had to choose from.
"Post Office", redolent of mud-flanked charges, drawing into wind-ridden staging posts.
"Royal Mail", dating back to Charles I, as, allegedly, an excuse for a spy network.
"Parcelforce", er, the other one.
Yet none of them were, in Dragon's eyes, up to the three-in-one job.
"Post Office - that was too generic. Lots of other countries had their own post offices, so it would have been a difficult name to protect abroad," Mr Wells says.
"Royal Mail - that has problems when operating in countries which have their own royal family, or have chopped the heads off their royals."
The unifying banner would have to be fashioned to a fresh design.
Closing in on Consignia
The suggestion of the name Consignia followed a tornado of brainstorming at Dragon's West London lair.
10 famous 'fake' corporate names
Accenture: Was Andersen Consulting
Centrica: Former arm of British Gas
Corus: Merged British Steel + Koninklijke Hoogovens
Diageo: Merged Guinness + Grand Metropolitan
Elementis: Was Harrisons & Crosfield
Thales: Renamed Thomson-CSF
Thus: Telecoms offspring of Scottish Power
Uniq: Revamped Unigate
Xansa: Renamed FI Group
Zeneca: Former ICI drugs division
Researchers assessed the Post Office's brand aims using measures such as the three p's - physique, personality, presentation.
They also used three bread-roll shapes bearing words such as "ambition" and "scope", and alleged to bring together "the hard and soft aspects of brand's desired positioning".
Out of the mix came hundreds of words, existing and made-up.
"There are something like 6,000 names applied for registration every day. That's one of the reasons you get so many made-up names - because they are available."
The team found itself leaning towards Consignia.
"It's got consign in it. It's got a link with insignia, so there is this kind of royalty-ish thing in the back of one's mind.
"And there's this lovely dictionary definition of consign which is 'to entrust to the care of'. That goes right back to sustaining trust, which was very, very important."
It was Consignia which was chosen by Post Office chiefs from a final shortlist of three - Mr Wells declines to reveal the alternatives.
Group chief executive John Roberts announced the name on 9 January last year as "modern, meaningful and entirely appropriate".
The rest is history, if what promises to be a short one for the Consignia name itself.
Mr Leighton has set a deadline of 2004 for the brand's replacement - by Royal Mail, if rumours last week are to be believed.
Consignia for ever
Whether the crowning of the UK's postal operator would be a positive step, Mr Wells is uncertain.
Stephen Byers: "Approved"' name change
"Royal Mail is a fantastic brand in its own right. But can it do things like cash management? Can it do thinks like logistics? Could it stand to comparison with TNT and DHL?"
Indeed, despite the controversy, he stands by Consignia.
"It fulfils the criteria we set for it. I believe in it as a name that ought to work."
External factors, such as a lack of consumer advertising of the brand, lie behind its relegation to a name boycotted by unions, and reviled by customers.
"We thought 'what would be the point of advertising if all you would be saying is this name change is happening which is not going to affect you?'," Mr Wells says.
The brand has also been damned by its coincidence with a dismal period of corporate performance.
"The name has got muddied with the comments that business is doing appallingly - this idea that nothing has been the same since the name change. It is a soft target."
Cynics may associate the brand's downfall with the involvement of the star-crossed Mr Byers, then trade secretary, who, Mr Wells says, cleared the name on behalf of the government.
"It had to be approved by the DTI. Mr Byers approved it."
Future promise?
The irony is that, thanks to the hours and acres of media hoo-ha, Consignia has become a household name. Or, at least, is no more obscure than Parcelforce.
Given time, Consignia could yet follow the outcast-to-icon trail of Winston Churchill, Abba, Sunday shopping, Notting Hill, Newcastle Brown, Ferrero Rocher chocolates and post-decimalisation "new" pence.
Given time, it could come to represent the delivery of a blizzard-beating service both in the UK and abroad.
It is time Consignia will not get.
In dumping the brand, Mr Leighton gains the opportunity to ditch the loss-making, job-cutting imagery with which the Consignia name has become associated.
He gains the chance to distance his new model postal service from the troubled operator of late.
Mr Leighton, like the author of Ecclesiastes, knows the value of a powerful brand.
And like St George, he has found a Dragon around which to base a public relations coup.
By Mike Verdin
BBC News Online business reporter
A duffer. A howling waste of money.
The most ruinous decision since the biblical scam that saw Esau swap his birthright for a bowl of stew.
Think "Post Office Group", think trust, honour, gritty postmen braving blizzards to save a child's smile.
It's got consign in it. It's got a link with insignia, so there is this kind of royalty-ish thing
Think "Consignia", the name which replaced it. Think, um, Roman general? Footballer? Tummy bug?
"A good name is better than precious ointment" - Ecclesiastes 7,1, to return to the biblical theme.
And Consignia, judging by public outcry, ranks a poor second to a dab of cabbage water.
Even Allan Leighton, Consignia's new chairman, abhors the brand and has pledged its demise.
So who pulled off the most notorious ever Post Office robbery - that of the name itself?
Seated before BBC News Online is Keith Wells, who led consultancy Dragon Brands on the two-year trail which ended with the dreaded four-syllable word.
"What the hell did you think you were doing?"
So Mr Wells addresses himself to open the interview.
And thus begins a story of three silos, three p's, three overlapping ellipses, several MPs, lots of focus groups and, oh lordy, Stephen Byers.
Mail domination
What Mr Wells says he was doing the day Post Office directors were told of the fated nine-letter word was to help prepare the company for a new era of semi-independence and diverse operations.
Allan Leighton is to ditch the Consignia brand
The Post Office Group was being repackaged as a plc, at arm's length from its sole shareholder - the government.
Also apparent was that the firm had travelled some distance from its 300-year-old roots as a domestic, mail-only concern. It boasted logistics and customer call centre operations, and was planning acquisitions abroad.
"We were researching hard into what this organisation called the Post Office was facing," Mr Wells says.
Postal workers, MPs, clients, customers and businesspeople were interviewed as Dragon sought to define the organisation's "desired reputation".
'Silo thinking'
What Dragon discovered was an organisation steeped in imagery of trust, honour, blizzard-braving valour, etc.
It was also wallowing in confusion about what its various arms - post offices, Parcelforce, Royal Mail - actually did.
Confusion among the public, at least.
Internally, staff seemed well able to define operational boundaries, and consistently to ignore the work of other divisions.
"There was this silo thinking - 'we are Royal Mail, we are Parcelforce'," Mr Wells says.
Dragon dreamed of a banner beneath which postal workers could unite.
Of a single thread which could bind the UK postal trinity into a seamless entity capable of addressing e-business, call centres and abroad on top.
"What we needed was something that went above that, to help pull all the bits together."
Famous names
And what brands the group had to choose from.
"Post Office", redolent of mud-flanked charges, drawing into wind-ridden staging posts.
"Royal Mail", dating back to Charles I, as, allegedly, an excuse for a spy network.
"Parcelforce", er, the other one.
Yet none of them were, in Dragon's eyes, up to the three-in-one job.
"Post Office - that was too generic. Lots of other countries had their own post offices, so it would have been a difficult name to protect abroad," Mr Wells says.
"Royal Mail - that has problems when operating in countries which have their own royal family, or have chopped the heads off their royals."
The unifying banner would have to be fashioned to a fresh design.
Closing in on Consignia
The suggestion of the name Consignia followed a tornado of brainstorming at Dragon's West London lair.
10 famous 'fake' corporate names
Accenture: Was Andersen Consulting
Centrica: Former arm of British Gas
Corus: Merged British Steel + Koninklijke Hoogovens
Diageo: Merged Guinness + Grand Metropolitan
Elementis: Was Harrisons & Crosfield
Thales: Renamed Thomson-CSF
Thus: Telecoms offspring of Scottish Power
Uniq: Revamped Unigate
Xansa: Renamed FI Group
Zeneca: Former ICI drugs division
Researchers assessed the Post Office's brand aims using measures such as the three p's - physique, personality, presentation.
They also used three bread-roll shapes bearing words such as "ambition" and "scope", and alleged to bring together "the hard and soft aspects of brand's desired positioning".
Out of the mix came hundreds of words, existing and made-up.
"There are something like 6,000 names applied for registration every day. That's one of the reasons you get so many made-up names - because they are available."
The team found itself leaning towards Consignia.
"It's got consign in it. It's got a link with insignia, so there is this kind of royalty-ish thing in the back of one's mind.
"And there's this lovely dictionary definition of consign which is 'to entrust to the care of'. That goes right back to sustaining trust, which was very, very important."
It was Consignia which was chosen by Post Office chiefs from a final shortlist of three - Mr Wells declines to reveal the alternatives.
Group chief executive John Roberts announced the name on 9 January last year as "modern, meaningful and entirely appropriate".
The rest is history, if what promises to be a short one for the Consignia name itself.
Mr Leighton has set a deadline of 2004 for the brand's replacement - by Royal Mail, if rumours last week are to be believed.
Consignia for ever
Whether the crowning of the UK's postal operator would be a positive step, Mr Wells is uncertain.
Stephen Byers: "Approved"' name change
"Royal Mail is a fantastic brand in its own right. But can it do things like cash management? Can it do thinks like logistics? Could it stand to comparison with TNT and DHL?"
Indeed, despite the controversy, he stands by Consignia.
"It fulfils the criteria we set for it. I believe in it as a name that ought to work."
External factors, such as a lack of consumer advertising of the brand, lie behind its relegation to a name boycotted by unions, and reviled by customers.
"We thought 'what would be the point of advertising if all you would be saying is this name change is happening which is not going to affect you?'," Mr Wells says.
The brand has also been damned by its coincidence with a dismal period of corporate performance.
"The name has got muddied with the comments that business is doing appallingly - this idea that nothing has been the same since the name change. It is a soft target."
Cynics may associate the brand's downfall with the involvement of the star-crossed Mr Byers, then trade secretary, who, Mr Wells says, cleared the name on behalf of the government.
"It had to be approved by the DTI. Mr Byers approved it."
Future promise?
The irony is that, thanks to the hours and acres of media hoo-ha, Consignia has become a household name. Or, at least, is no more obscure than Parcelforce.
Given time, Consignia could yet follow the outcast-to-icon trail of Winston Churchill, Abba, Sunday shopping, Notting Hill, Newcastle Brown, Ferrero Rocher chocolates and post-decimalisation "new" pence.
Given time, it could come to represent the delivery of a blizzard-beating service both in the UK and abroad.
It is time Consignia will not get.
In dumping the brand, Mr Leighton gains the opportunity to ditch the loss-making, job-cutting imagery with which the Consignia name has become associated.
He gains the chance to distance his new model postal service from the troubled operator of late.
Mr Leighton, like the author of Ecclesiastes, knows the value of a powerful brand.
And like St George, he has found a Dragon around which to base a public relations coup.
All post by me in Green are Admin Posts.
Any post in any other colour is my own responsibility.
If you like a news story I posted please click the link to show support Any news stories you can't post - PM me with a link
My sharing of news articles should not be interpreted as an endorsement or condemnation of any particular viewpoint or the issues presented. I share them solely for informational purposes.
Any post in any other colour is my own responsibility.
If you like a news story I posted please click the link to show support Any news stories you can't post - PM me with a link
My sharing of news articles should not be interpreted as an endorsement or condemnation of any particular viewpoint or the issues presented. I share them solely for informational purposes.
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NWpostie
- Posts: 3608
- Joined: 04 Aug 2007, 17:32
- Gender: Male
- Location: Sector 001 Borg Collective, 6 o f 9
Re: Remember When We Were Consignia?
I have along with my "Consignia" 10 year service certificate.evilc wrote:How many of u kept the pin badge that we were given at the time?Zorro wrote:Ahhhh......the glory days!!!
being the shortest lived company name, it might be worth something on Ebay !!
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baldrick
- EX ROYAL MAIL
- Posts: 5038
- Joined: 13 Sep 2007, 23:37
- Gender: Male
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Carla
- Posts: 241
- Joined: 29 Aug 2007, 08:13
- Gender: Female
- Location: Scotland's bonnie lassie
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Dan Gleebitz
- Posts: 17
- Joined: 08 Sep 2007, 18:03
- Location: Location: Location
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TrueBlueTerrier
- FORUM ADMINISTRATOR
- Posts: 72594
- Joined: 30 Dec 2006, 10:29
- Gender: Male
- Location: On my couch
When 
were 
were All post by me in Green are Admin Posts.
Any post in any other colour is my own responsibility.
If you like a news story I posted please click the link to show support Any news stories you can't post - PM me with a link
My sharing of news articles should not be interpreted as an endorsement or condemnation of any particular viewpoint or the issues presented. I share them solely for informational purposes.
Any post in any other colour is my own responsibility.
If you like a news story I posted please click the link to show support Any news stories you can't post - PM me with a link
My sharing of news articles should not be interpreted as an endorsement or condemnation of any particular viewpoint or the issues presented. I share them solely for informational purposes.
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ROCKY
- Posts: 2801
- Joined: 03 Dec 2006, 13:18
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L Tommo
- Posts: 3165
- Joined: 06 Feb 2007, 09:43
- Gender: Male
- Location: WATCHING YOU WATCHING ME!
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Stormproof
- Posts: 6116
- Joined: 07 Jul 2007, 21:03
- Gender: Female
Consignia
Has someone changed the name back and not told us???In dumping the brand, Mr Leighton gains the opportunity to ditch the loss-making, job-cutting imagery with which the Consignia name has become associated.
So keep on moving, moving, moving your feet
Keep on shuf-shuf-shuffling to this ghost dance beat
Just keep on walking down never ending streets
Illegitimi non carborundum
Keep on shuf-shuf-shuffling to this ghost dance beat
Just keep on walking down never ending streets
Illegitimi non carborundum
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Psychedalic
- Posts: 32
- Joined: 07 Aug 2007, 23:21
Re: Consignia
I thought that too K66yla.k66yla wrote:Has someone changed the name back and not told us???In dumping the brand, Mr Leighton gains the opportunity to ditch the loss-making, job-cutting imagery with which the Consignia name has become associated.
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p379
- Posts: 39
- Joined: 28 Sep 2007, 18:15
Re: Consignia
Psychedalic wrote:I thought that too K66yla.k66yla wrote:Has someone changed the name back and not told us???In dumping the brand, Mr Leighton gains the opportunity to ditch the loss-making, job-cutting imagery with which the Consignia name has become associated.
http://i5.ebayimg.com/01/i/000/b4/93/5cf5_1.JPG
Hope this link works Insignia thats all it reminds me of the smell of shite!