PSA, Europe’s second largest car maker after Volkswagen (14.9 percent and 20.8 percent market share respectively in February 2010, as per ACEA) considers changing their name, says Bloomberg. There are several choices on the table, the front-runner appears to be …
PSA.
PSA spokesman Pierre-Olivier Salmon confirmed to Bloomberg: “A change to the company name is currently being considered. One of the possibilities is ‘PSA,’ but no decision has been made.”
Excuse-moi?
See, PSA’s official name is actually PSA Peugeot Citroën, which is a bit unwieldy. Especially with the two dots on the ë (an affliction they share with Ferdinand Piëch, but I digress.) PSA stands for Peugeot Société Anonyme (not an anonymous society, simply a corporation, usually a publicly traded one, à la française.) After buying Citroën, they changed their name to PSA Peugeot Citroën, but kept the brands apart.
Bloomberg surmises that there is more behind that than just a shorter name: “The possible name change would cap moves that have sharpened the Peugeot and Citroen divisions’ identities while reducing their management autonomy. The company put a single designer in charge in 2008 and assigned Jean-Marc Gales, its No. 2 executive, last July to run the brands and fuse their administrative, marketing and dealership networks.”
Salmon said that Peugeot Citroen is seeking a “simplification” of the name to reflect changes to marketing strategy. I’m sure PSA has read Wikipedia’s disambiguation page. One of the highlights of my annual health check is when the doc says “now comes the good part” and administers the PSA test.
Bertel – I was expecting that you’d put on your adman hat and favor us with a few ideas. Much too early here on a Saturday to expect us to think independently.
Citroen – the most comfortable seating to take your poor violated bum home after your checkup.
Peugeot – our hybrids can burn anything, even our stinky cheese, peu!
Query what is the French translation of PSA in the medical sense. Probably something different. So this is not quite as bad as the Wisconsin Tourist Federation, which decided it had to change its name to Tourism Federation of Wisconsin because the domain wtf.org was, ummm, getting to be a problem.
Wow. For a second I thought one of the names to be considered was Read More.
You’re a Master of Suspense, Mr Schmitt!
;-)
I don’t know who does the headlines and pics at TTAC, but he or she definitely deserves a raise. Excellent, TTAC.
Bertel didn’t offer a suggestion because he knew TTAC’s Best and Brightest could be relied on to step into the breach. Either that, or he’s playing the angel and waiting for fools to rush in.
Anyway, since there are two brands, Use the first three letters of PEUgeot and CITroen. B&B, I give you “PeuCit S.A.”. Unless that means something dirty in French.
Probably something different. So this is not quite as bad as the Wisconsin Tourist Federation. They changed their name to PSA Peugeot Citroën, but kept the brands apart.
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