My guess is long term. Everybody knows they changed their name. They put out a press release. No short term benefit.
It's really more than a name change. Unless they at least begin to build other revenue streams, they won't grow.
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Entercom To Rebrand as Audacy
- Thread starter AceBiscuits
- Start date
My guess is long term. Everybody knows they changed their name. They put out a press release. No short term benefit.
It's really more than a name change. Unless they at least begin to build other revenue streams, they won't grow.
The market analysts, yes. Your average consumer? Not so much. They've got to educate the people who consume their product, bring in new customers, and educate them as well. The name is weak sauce. According to a quick Google search, it's not even original. Number 3 in my results is a "cloud-enabled lighting control system" and a couple notches down is a "space communications service provider enabling continuous satellite and launch vehicle connectivity from the launchpad to the Moon."
It's not that I'm being averse to change. It just seems like a poor choice for a new name. Something that was decided by a committee.
What difference does it make who chose the name? Once again, this is not for the short term.
The name sucks. That's the point.
In your opinion. How much stock do you own?
I did not
Nor the title? Why on earth did you jump in and post in the first place?
I'm awaiting his answer.
I'm awaiting his answer.
OK, just for you, here's a different response to his post (I have lots of them)
Do you know what the #1 search result for Pandora is? It's not the streaming site. It's the jewelry site. Yes, Jared gets a higher ranking on Google than one of the world's most popular streaming sites. Pandora is a weak name for a streaming site. Using your logic, they should replace Pandora with a better name. But nobody cares about company names. They just want to hear music for free. So they'll type in whatever dumb word gets them there.
That's actually evidence that it's a good name, both for the jewelry variety and for the streaming service. It's memorable enough for people to enter it in search engines.
Don't know if you own much stock, but future shareholders don't shop around for stocks to purchase based solely on the parent company name. Not successful stock trader's anyway. Successful ones will see a new name pop up and do some research on their earnings-history, guidance, and publish innovations pushing growth. I know of zero successful investors in Wall Street who look solely at a name and say, they'll pass. Maybe the old day-traders of the early 90's buying penny stocks in bulk would have, but with all the automated trading being used today, those days are long gone.
Most people with 401K's choose to let the investment company manage their portfolio. Sure, you can re-balance by choosing stocks over bonds, conservative over more aggressive, domestic or foreign investments. Very few actually drill down into choosing individual stocks and number of shares involved in their 401K.
At a granular-brand level that's correct. I'm willing to bet that 99.9% of the listeners don't know that KISW is owned by Entercom or Rubber Dog Poo. You probably use hundreds of different products daily or weekly, that you only know the product name, not the parent company.
If your company is listed on either of the stock exchanges, or openly sell shares, you're regulated by the SEC among others. That means filing some of your financial and tax reports publicly. Those financial reports include certain guidance on the financial health of your company, and to an extent, forward looking plans.
Using that logic then Audacy is also a good name, since it comes up in search engines for other products,
I suspect that's actually how most people buy stock, too. Most of them go through a broker, and I suspect almost all of them follow their broker's recommendations. After all, (s)he gets paid more the more your portfolio makes and, thus, has an incentive to make good recommendations. Of course, we know those recommendations don't always work out. My dad was a frequent investor and was generally good at it, but he had a few notable cases that didn't work for him. The biggest one was Worldcom. When he was telling me he was interested in Worldcom, I told him, "Don't do it. I can't figure out how they make their money." Well, he decided to listen to his broker because, "He doesn't make money if I don't." He would never tell me how much he lost on Worldcom, but he said I'd probably fall over dead from a heart attack if I ever actually found out.
ETM opened this morning at $5.31. That's not terrible given where it was at this point last year. iHeartMedia and Cumulus opened much higher. ETM was about on-par with Urban One and seemed in the middle of the pack. I can't imagine ETM is getting anybody's attention at those rates, but it was a penny stock not long ago. If you invested $1,000 in it a year ago, you have about $8,000 today.
None. I don't have a dog in the hunt, so to speak. Anyone else own stock that's talking it up in this thread?I'm awaiting his answer.
You yourself said the name is "exceptionally bad."
You not liking it doesn't make it bad. I'd guarantee they did far more research on this.
You really can't do in-context research on new names. You can, however, present names and ask for the selection of a word that comes to mind when you hear it.
I've seen a number of stations put a list of potential new names in a music test. Generally, the most common, over-used names win. The creative, imaginative ones do not. But those creative ones win once a station goes on and promotes.
Which name do you think consumers would have selected decades ago: "Charmin" or "KleenWipe"? Charmin would have lost as the name was meaningless at the time, but this is one of the most successful brand intros ever.
Think about unlikely consumer brands like "Crest" for a toothpaste or "Tide" for a detergent and you'll realize that the best ones are self-defined through promotion and carry no baggage with them.
Detergents, especially, have a history of names that mean absolutely nothing: Oxydol, Duz, Dreft ... brand names from my youth that still make me wonder why they were slapped on boxes of laundry cleaner. At least "Tide" suggests water, though far too much of it, spread over too wide an area, generating too little force, to be an efficient remover of grass stains from a pair of jeans.
And the worst is when you come up with a brand that means something negative to potential audience members. The most prominent examples of that are Exxon and the Chevy Nova. Exxon was originally known as “Enco” until they found out they weren’t selling in Japan because that name meant “stalled car.” The company then spent quite-a-bit of money to make sure the next name it would use would mean absolutely nothing. The Nova didn’t sell in Spanish speaking companies because ”no va” means “doesn’t go.”
In terms of radio, when easy listening KMEO in Phoenix decided to go soft AC, it quickly got rid of the KMEO calls and decided to find calls that would match its “Sunny 97” brand. Unfortunately, it came up with KPSN. Most everybody who was listening didn’t interpret it to mean “Phoenix Sunny” as intended. A different nickname came to most everybody’s mind! When 100.3 in Orlando switched to its Spanish-language centric programming from oldies, it ran a message on its website that said, “¡Viniendo!” It was quickly changed to “¡Pronto Llega!” after someone realized its original message did, in fact, mean “coming,” but definitely not the way it was intended! I’m guessing the former Clear Channel is glad it didn’t sink a ton into a billboard campaign prior to launch!
If nothing else, Audacy wouldn't seem to mean anything negative, even if it’s an overall lousy marketing strategy.
In terms of radio, when easy listening KMEO in Phoenix decided to go soft AC, it quickly got rid of the KMEO calls and decided to find calls that would match its “Sunny 97” brand. Unfortunately, it came up with KPSN. Most everybody who was listening didn’t interpret it to mean “Phoenix Sunny” as intended. A different nickname came to most everybody’s mind! When 100.3 in Orlando switched to its Spanish-language centric programming from oldies, it ran a message on its website that said, “¡Viniendo!” It was quickly changed to “¡Pronto Llega!” after someone realized its original message did, in fact, mean “coming,” but definitely not the way it was intended! I’m guessing the former Clear Channel is glad it didn’t sink a ton into a billboard campaign prior to launch!
If nothing else, Audacy wouldn't seem to mean anything negative, even if it’s an overall lousy marketing strategy.
T'will be interesting to revisit this discussion thread in, say, 5 years after Audacy has been around for a while (if it still remains with us) and see how many here were right/wrong about the name/understanding/popularity/spell check issue, etc.
I have no problem with it as the name of the company. I get the meaning and intent. The mistake is making it work double duty, as a company name and a streaming site. When they renamed the company Alphabet, they kept the Google name on their search engine. It hasn't hurt them a bit. You'd be surprised how many restaurant brands are owned by Yum. More brands can bring more value to a company.
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