Over at the New Yorker, Ian Crouch writes about the “slight profundity” of the latest corporate name change: “[Dunkin’] joins a list of brands with global reach whose names have been whittled down to complete meaninglessness. Weight Watchers just rebranded itself as WW. Jo-Ann Fabrics is now Joann.”
While his sort of thing nearly always comes across as a bizarre combination of desperation and condescension to me, Crouch notes that, by simplifying its name, the company “may just be trying to market more easily a vaguely defined universe of products, or to better compete globally, but it also feels like a nod to colloquialism, and to the familiar. We recognize a Dunkin’ when we see one, no matter what the sign says.”
Maybe. Still seems dumb, though.
