Is it just me or do you too think that everyone who works at WPP, Havas, Publicis, Dentsu and MSQ (yes, you Matt) is pissing themselves at the new Omnicom Covid variant? Yeh, yeh, I know it’s Omicron but come on, it’s so close we’ve already lit the cigars and everything.
Apparently the office of Omnicom global chief executive John Wren has already been forced to refute claims that senior management at the marketing giant have banned staff from even uttering the new variant’s name in front of clients, for fear of putting them off.
Mind you, according to the World Health Organisation, these names aren’t just pulled out of a hat and there is a great deal of effort which goes into branding new variants.
Quite why we have to use an alphabet from the thirteenth century BC is anyone’s guess but no doubt those of you who are big fans of the Classics will think I’m a Philistine. Still, that’s why B.1.1.7 became Alpha, B.1.351 Beta, P.1 Gamma, B.1.617.2 Delta and B.1.1.529 is Omicron.
Some letters simply aren’t suitable either, with “Nu” apparently shunned as it is too easily confused with “new” and “Xi” avoided allegedly because they did not want to make China president Xi Jinping cry.
In fact, the WHO has also been keen to point out that its best practices for naming diseases are designed to prevent “causing offense to any cultural, social, national, regional, professional or ethnic groups”.
Obviously they don’t give a toss about hairy arsed printers though, so please spare a thought for Canterbury firm Omicron Repro, which has unsurprisingly found itself in the eye of the storm.
In fact, according to Companies House, there are 108 limited companies which have embraced the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet, from Omicron Design and Omicron Capital to Omicron Electrical and my personal favourite Omicron Lubricants.
Omicron Marketing must have seen it coming, though, it has already gone into liquidation.
But as Isis Equity Partners, Isis Pharmaceuticals and Isis Translations found out to their cost, having the same name as something hideous is not always a great idea.
With that in mind, the bosses at Publicis-owned Epsilon – the fifth letter of the Greek alphabet – might want to keep their heads down too…
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