Okay… it’s Friday. It’s snowing in Dallas, and it’s a bit slow around the office. But, when I saw that Reed Elsevier was going to change its name to RELX, I thought maybe it was a joke to draw attention away from the black/blue vs. gold/white dress discussion. Apparently not.
I’m sure there was a big Think-Tank of Marketing Gurus involved in this decision, but on the surface it looks like it was a room of Gen Y’s that had never heard of the band Frankie Goes to Hollywood… otherwise, they would have seen snarky posts like this one… or this one… or this one, coming.
Not sure what CEO Erik Engstrom is trying to pull off here, but I think for the next few weeks, he’s going to catch a bit of ribbing for this decision.
Does R E L X stand for:
R: Reed
E: Elsevier
LX: LexisNexis??
If so, then maybe those of us in the legal industry can RELX… I mean, relax. The RELX Group, plc became official on February 26th, with the official, and final move to the name coming on July 1st this year. The relxgroup.com website is already active. Quite Frankie… I mean, frankly, it’s a bit confusing.
As we find out more behind the decision to change the name to a four-letter acronym, let me leave you with some great lyrics to a great song, and see if Mr. Engstrom is up to make making it his intention, and keep scheming those schemes.