The Monday That Turned up Its Toes on a Tuesday

A re-branding story gone wrong

This story is about a Monday that went to its eternal rest on a Tuesday.

What’s in a name? Seems like there’s lots in a name — especially if the name is “Monday.”

After the Enron scandal, accounting firms began to fence off their auditing divisions from their consulting and accounting businesses. They did so to avoid the conflicts of interest that led to Enron’s downfall.

One such firm, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, tasked branding bigwigs, Wolff Ollins, with devising a solid — yet attention-grabbing moniker— for their consultancy spin-off. PwC spent 10% of their $110m re-branding budget on finding the right name.

In early June 2002, the new name was revealed amidst much fanfare — including full page ads in the Wall Street Journal. PwC Consulting would henceforth be known as “Monday!”

PwC explained that “Monday” was all about “Fresh thinking, doughnuts, hot coffee, a positive attitude...”

The name was immediately and widely panned.

“Just another Manic Monday “was one of the first reactions. A reference to the popular Bangles song.

The June 10th, 2002 edition of the Irish Times put it this way: “For many, the word ‘Monday’ suggests alarm clocks and curtailed fun just as surely as a dentist connotes pain.”

Other comments included: “The day of the week formerly known as Monday would like to announce its name change to distance itself from PwC Consulting. Forthwith it will be known as Tuesday Eve.”

Another wag wrote, “A more recognizable derivative of PricewaterhouseCoopers would have been… ‘Poopers.’ It can’t be any worse than ‘Monday.’”

In July, IBM bought the PwC spin-off and earned the moniker: I-Bought-Monday.

The new company bore the name “Monday” for just one day. (No marks for guessing which day of the week that might be.)

On Tuesday, IBM dropped the “Monday” name. It rolled their acquisition into IBM BCS(Business Consulting Services).

On Wednesday (July 31, 2002), the following “obituary” appeared in the BBC news world edition. It read: “Monday passed away quietly on Tuesday after a short but controversial life.”

On a personal note — during this time, hubby was working for PwC Consulting. He was employed at “Monday” for all of 24 hours.

And this was the sorry tale of a brand called “Monday.”

But in keeping with my New Year’s resolution to be kinder, I will end on a less snarky note — with a limerick. It’s my first attempt at writing one. Anyway, here goes:

It’s the day of the week after Sunday It’s everything but a Fun Day. I’d like to wish it away But it’s here to stay That miserable, Manic Monday.