While there are many mistakes a company can make in naming a product, some branding disasters are just sheer bad luck. Such is the problem the ISIS mobile wallet faces today as it now shares a name with a Islamist insurgent group currently leading a violent revolution in Iraq. It is hard to imagine there was a plan on the books for this situation, but perhaps history can be a guide. Specifically, the history of a little diet pill called “Ayds,” that suddenly found itself with a similar branding crisis in the early 1980’s.
When coming up with a name for their mobile wallet, the telecom partnership that gave birth to the ISIS mobile wallet likely considered several factors—was it catchy, would people remember it easily—in short, was ISIS the kind of name that was going to grab on to potential users’ minds and not let go until they had started buying things with it?
It is hard to imagine that anyone ever stopped a meeting to ask “Is it possible that a Sunni insurgent group is also going to choose this name and then cut a bloody swath of revolution though northern and western Iraq; thus giving us a recognizable brand name for all the wrong reasons?” And really, it’s hard to blame them—who ever would think of that?
Yet it seems that this is exactly the situation ISIS – the mobile wallet– has found itself in since the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) began its violent uprising and push to overthrow the government of Iraqi president Nouri al-Maliki in late May 2014.
Though ISIS has been around and active (albeit under a slightly different name) since 2009 – the Sunni extremist group didn’t have much traction with the international press until recently when they suddenly presented a serious threat to the fragile peace in Iraq.
This means that the biggest “ISIS”-related story most news outlets reported on in May was actually about the mobile wallet, namely that it was seeing its download rates spike to nearly 600K per day.
By early June, the situation was quite different. By then, ISIS (rebels, not the mobile wallet) had seized the entire northern province of Nineve, its capital Mosul and large sections of the nation’s western borderlands. It then began instituting Sharia law in the territory under its control and is now getting air support from the Syrian government.  As of the writing of this story, the U.S. is considering military intervention and Bahgdad is thought to be very much at risk.
None of this is good news for ISIS (the mWallet)—as no one wants a Google search of their brand name to turn up phrases like “Sharia Law,” “Violent Oppression of Women,” “Anarchy,” or “Tactical Beheadings.”
But then again—how bad is the news really? Will people actually conflate a mobile wallet with a group of violent extremists—it seems unlikely— and given ISIS’s (the insurgents) penchant for name changes, it also might not matter in two weeks when the insurrectionists unexpectedly start calling themselves something else entirely.
Then again, a bad association, no matter how unlikely, has killed brands before. Just ask the makers of AYDS—a diet pill that was popular in the late 70’s that saw its entire consumer base wither and die in the early 80’s when suddenly that name seemed less well chosen.
In the 70’s, AYDS was a diet candy that came in chocolate and butterscotch flavors. By the time the 1980’s rolled around, it also had added a type of gallows humor flavor with its rather unfortunately famous advertising pitch, “Why take diet pills when you can enjoy Ayds?”
That is only one in a series of commercials that went on to become highly disturbing. Another is this classic, where the spokesmodel notes quite enthusiastically, “The AYDS diet plan really works!”
Unremarkably, AYDS, which was a top selling diet supplement of 1978 and 1979, saw its profits nearly cut in half 10 years later.
And yet AYDS persisted, refusing to change its name until 1988, as this story in The New York Times notes:
“The manufacturer of the diet candy Ayds is seeking a new name for its product because publicity about the deadly disease AIDS is hurting sales, the chairman said today.”
The article went on to report that by 1988 the brand had already renamed itself AYDSlim in the United Kingdom. By 1989 it had rebranded the U.S. product as “Diet AYDS,” which may imply the company did not fully understand what its actual branding issue was.
What, if anything, can ISIS (the mobile wallet makers) learn from AYDS?
On the one hand, it might be to ISIS’ benefit that it is, in 2014, a much less well-known and popular brand than AYDS was in 1980—meaning that many people won’t experience any negative association to an mWallet partnership between telecos because they have no idea such a thing exists in the first place.
Then again, it probably won’t help the wallet’s path to ignition if it causes potential users to ask, upon hearing the product name for the first time “Wait, didn’t those people overthrow the government in Iraqi and kill countless civilians? Why would I download their mobile wallet? I am not paying with ISIS.”
And it seems to be a problem that ISIS is sensitive to. In a recent survey to consumers, the brand asked:
“You have undoubtedly noticed that your Isis Wallet shares a common name with the acronym of the ISIS group in Iraq/Syria, does this change your likelihood to use your Isis Wallet?” reports PaymentsSource.
The survey also asked users their opinion of the ISIS militant group and how much they’ve heard about it compared to other Middle Eastern organizations classified as terror groups.
What ISIS will do with that survey data remains to be seen, though analysts think a quick and quiet name change is in order.
“I cannot imagine Isis, the industry company, will continue to use its name,” said Jim Van Dyke, CEO and founder of Javelin Strategy & Research, reports PaymentsSource. “I predict the U.S.-based Isis would simply tweak its name and move on.”
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