Is this goodbye for Beechams?

By

The merger between pharmaceutical giants SmithKline Beecham and Glaxo Wellcome poses yet another pretty naming problem. Surely the new company’s own choice – Glaxo SmithKline – is a stopgap.

It presumably must be the case that the loss of both Beecham and Wellcome will not be the final nail in their coffins, and that their brand equity will be reflected in a carefully constructed strategy which optimises their undoubted values – and I don’t mean just the remedies labelled as Beechams.

Also, if a new name is ever introduced, I hope it isn’t another Aventis, or Avensis (or was it Invensys?)

Chris Ludlow

Henrion, Ludlow & Schmidt

London SW1

Recommended

National Savings director Hickman-Robertson quits

Marketing Week

Patrick Hickman-Robertson is retiring as marketing director of the Government’s troubled National Savings Agency (NSA). Hickman-Robertson has been with the state-owned savings vehicle for 27 years and has twice filled the post of marketing director. He retires this week. Deputy directors Jack Tochoch and Sue Simpson will take over responsibility for marketing until a new […]

Novel interest in unfinished book

Marketing Week

Imagine two publishers holding a bidding war over your unfinished novel. “In your dreams”, you might say. Yet that is exactly what has happened to lucky Charles Ross, who has given up his role as national development manager for the Newspaper Society to concentrate on his career as an author. His first book, due out […]

Latest from Marketing Week