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1. 1. elain.ess | September 9th, 2007 at 11:31 pm

   impressive! tara the logo isnt that bad it needs time to getting used to

2. 2. Hellraiser | September 10th, 2007 at 12:09 am

   Fugly, colors are somber, as somber as the service they provide, they should spend their money wisely on updating their lousy netwrok. By the way black how lively and inspiring looks like a funeral home logo.

3. 3. Sal | September 10th, 2007 at 12:17 am

   This is a major branding fuck up all the way around. They will teach this as a no-no in business textbooks for years to come.

4. 4. Ryan | September 10th, 2007 at 2:52 am

   totally agree sal , its a a shame with all the revenues they have some would think they would do a better job!
   oh well…

5. 5. Mo Hat | September 10th, 2007 at 4:49 am

   What’s the big deal about zain anyway? What’s so good about it?

6. 6. Patrick | September 10th, 2007 at 5:24 am

   Question is, what is everyone bitching about? How is this a major branding fuck up?

7. 7. fatfukka | September 10th, 2007 at 7:24 am

   it’s a bad choice of colours, matching black with turquoise – very early-80’s. As for being a no-no in business textbooks, I don’t think you can count any marketing in Kuwait as relevant to the rest of the world, what with the effective state control on the business practices and pricing of the companies.

8. 8. mushroom | September 10th, 2007 at 10:17 am

   maybe they would give more promotions this time..

9. 9. Esh6a | September 10th, 2007 at 3:55 pm

   I dont know what to say ! El logo Thaiiiim. El efteta7 very low class. Wain MTC vodafone awal o wain al7een Zain !!

10. 10. MHG | September 10th, 2007 at 5:34 pm

    I am not up-to-date on this issue. Could someone explain whey the choose to change the original name? I thought it was just fine.

11. 11. Sal | September 10th, 2007 at 7:43 pm

    I explained why the brand sucks here:

    http://www.248am.com/mark/kuwait/zain/#comments

    As to why this is a textbook no-no.

    I’m scratching my head as to why they did it. Their CEO said its because they want to put their multi-national operations under one umbrella. But, why? No answer. Many multinationals have subsidaries with different brands with no problem. Coca Cola owned Columbia Pictures (later sold to Sony). Now, they didn’t change its brand to Coca Cola pictures, did they? Neither did Sony.

    A brand name is money. It actually gets evaluated in dollar amount when you audit a company to figure out its worth. Think of all the Dinars MTC spent of advertising its brand in the past, it’s all down the toilet now for no good reason! And now they have to spend more money to establish their new tacky brand, all of which will end up sucking more cash from their coffer reducing profitability. This in my book is called a major business fuck up.

    Compare this to what PWC did to rebrand to Agility. Its day and night. It will probably take me a page or two to explain why, but trust me, that was a much wiser and classier move.

    Cheers!

12. 12. Mughrabi | September 11th, 2007 at 12:48 am

    why u deleted my comment?? i didn’t say anything or put anything worth deleting?!??!??!?

13. 13. Patrick | September 11th, 2007 at 4:04 am

    I don’t really know the reason behind the name change, but Zain is nice. The meaning of the word is positive in a lot of languages throughout the regions that the brand Zain will be used. What does Zain have to do with Indians? A lot of Kuwaiti’s use the word Zain and I’ve heard it used in Lebanon quite a bit too. You have some strange racist stereotypes in your head.

    Given any company brand change, it takes sometime to get used to, at first I didn’t really like the name or the logo, but you just get used to it. Comparing it to other telecommunication companies in the region and it’s actually pretty good. The website is well built and isn’t filled with useless Flash animations or anything like that sort. I think changing the brand from MTC to Zain is moving forward, MTC is a boring name, Zain is more exciting.

    You mention on the other page that the word Zain has nothing to do with telecommunications, but then, what does the name Apple have to do with the computer or the entertainment industry? Or what does Virgin have to do with what it is? I can write a whole list of companies that have names that has nothing to do with their field.

    This criticism of Zain, when it has just freshly been launched is amateurish. Criticism should be reserved for its services, not its brand name. A brand name is made popular from its services, unless you’re a shallow person, you should just give it a chance.

14. 14. Mark | September 11th, 2007 at 8:46 am

    Mughrabi I didn’t delete any of your comments, check and see if you accidentally posted it under another post.

15. 15. Sal | September 11th, 2007 at 2:51 pm

    ِThat’s the whole point genius. Apple started as Apple and it stayed there. It didn’t change to Kiwi because they had operations in New Zealand, nor did Virgin switch to “Experienced” because Richard Branson had his first lay. You build a brand name, you stick with it, unless there’s a damn good reason not to. Get it?

    And the color scheme reminds me of cheap Ibiza disco flyers from the 90s. Absolutely horrendous. Yuck!

    Cheers :)

16. 16. Mark | September 11th, 2007 at 2:56 pm

    Sal there was a good reason and thats why they changed to Zain. Haven’t you been reading?

17. 17. mushroom | September 11th, 2007 at 3:20 pm

    Apple to Kiwi
    Virgin to Experienced

    ha ha ha… i like the way you think.
    however, why is everyone affected by the name-change? i dont get it.

18. 18. Patrick | September 11th, 2007 at 3:27 pm

    Mushroom:

    Me either. Guess it’s not cool or something ;)

    I guess Sal is just one of those people that just judges a book by its cover. No sense at all.

19. 19. Sal | September 11th, 2007 at 3:30 pm

    Mark,

    What’s the good reason? Consolidating various operations under one name? Why? And if so, why couldn’t it be MTC instead of inventing another name?

    MTC is boring? So is IBM, BMW, ITT, BP, B&o, GE, LV, Rolex, Proctor & Gamble. What is so special about these names? Nothing, but once you build a name over many years of ad spending, you stick with it unless there is a damn good reason like spinning off a subsidiary like when AT&T spun off Lucent. I see absolutely no logical reason to what MTC did except vanity coupled with stupidity and bad decision making. What if ZAIN expands to China 10 years from now? What if the word ZAIN means “Panda shit” in Chinese? Rebrand again?

    When PWC rebranded to Agility there was a good reason. Their business is multinational, by which I mean their day to day operations are ALWAYS cross borders. They acquired many existing companies all over the world with different names which could be confusing to its customers. So, they came up with a unified name, and what a name it is (Agility). It reflects the ease of movement, the heart of the company’s operations, making things move with ease. Now, that’s rebranding.

    Cheers :)

20. 20. Mark | September 11th, 2007 at 3:42 pm

    Sal, MTC’s situation was EXACTLY like PWC. Their business is multinational and they acquired many existing companies all over the world with different names. So how come you are saying its ok for PWC to rebrand but not ok for MTC?

    They never said they changed their name because it was “boring”. Read their site a bit dude.

21. 21. Sal | September 11th, 2007 at 4:21 pm

    You raise a good point Mark.

    Here is the major difference between MTC and PWC. Agility’s core business is ALWAYS cross border. That is what they do, move stuff across national boundaries. That is why you need a single reference point. You don’t want to ship stuff by X company to receive it by Y company. Think of Agility like FedEx. It has to be the same chain otherwise customers get confused.

    MTC is different. They have several operations across the region, but each one is essentially domestic within the country. Cross border operations are irrelevant. An Iraqi MTC calling a Jordanian MTC is an international call. Being the same company makes no difference. Its the same as an Iraqi Orascom calling a Jordanian MTC.

    So MTC’s situation is completely different from PWC, hence the rebranding with a different name is both wasteful and illogical. I have a feeling the stock market is going to punish MTC share price in the coming months for this foolish move because it will eat into their profits.

    Cheers

22. 22. Mark | September 11th, 2007 at 4:27 pm

    Glad you’re not in charge of Zain

23. 23. Sal | September 11th, 2007 at 4:33 pm

    I’m not, otherwise this decision would pass over my dead body ;)

24. 24. ms_elegant | September 14th, 2007 at 12:00 pm

    I Enjoyed reading your conversation both of you, mark & Sal ;)

25. 25. Nina | September 16th, 2007 at 1:58 pm

    Just for your peace of mind Sal…. The company that MTC had assigned the job of branding was a European company and they were actually responsible for a number of rebranding projects such as KODAK.

    Part of the reason for the branding was due to the simple fact that MTC was not a brand so there was not effort put into building the initial brand as you put it, there was only effort put into advertising the services that were provided. That why every advert you ever saw war tied to a service or product; which is not the case now, so far all adverts are aimed towards communicating the Zain values and what it stands for as a brand.

    The name MTC was simply a type of business (Mobile Telecommunications Company) so there was no brand to begin with. Plus MTC stood for several things it you were to search for MTC you’ll have list of different companies not top mention a long list of Mobile telecomm providers.. so there was a need to unify it all under one name that was not specific to a service or a function.

    Plus part of the research was dedicated towards ensuring that the short list of names that included ZAIN did not have any negative or derogatory meaning in any language including Chinese so for sure it will not mean Panda Shit..

    Plus it is a multinational company. customers might not feel it but employees are working on a mutli-national level on a day to day basis. I don’t get why you are so upset.. if you don’t like it than either just take it for what it is or just ignore it.

26. 26. Umm Zain | September 22nd, 2007 at 8:22 pm

    MTC’s re-branding to Zain is/was a smart move. From what I can tell the word MTC has cancer written all over it : MTC can also stand for Medullary Thyroid Carcinoma. Now, what consumer in the world would want to have a service provider with such a malignant sounding name?!
    Zain sounds pretty Zain for most of us, thank you very much. Besides the name also has a certain Zen like ring to it.
    Zain is in more ways than one showing the forward path to other Kuwait based corporates who may want to think about operating in healthier business climates like in neighboring Dubai. Zain is going the UASC way; time will tell whether NBK and KIPCO too decide to move to Dubai or Bahrain

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