For some of you the title of this article seems completely…stupid. But it seems that for a lot of people, there is a major concern regarding the potential connection between Corona beer and the deadly Wuhan coronavirus.

According to Business Insider publication, a lot of people appear to be searching on Google to find out whether the beer Corona is related in anyway to the new virus.

The searches for “corona beer virus” or “beer virus” and “beer coronavirus” have highly increased worldwide since January 18, according to Google Trends.

From January 18 to January 26, searches for “corona beer virus” have skyrocketed 2.300% globally! Searches for “beer virus” have increased at 744% and searches for “beer coronavirus” have jumped 3.233%.

For sure, there is no connection between the beer and the virus.

The name coronavirus comes from the fact that the new virus seen under a microscope has crown-like spikes protruding from it. The name of Corona Beer, comes from the same word “Crown”, which is translated from Spanish into “Corona”.

At this moment the stock price of Corona’s parent company does not appear to have been affected.

We are sure that it represents a very unpleasant situation which on long term may cause also some negative effect on the brand’s name.

A natural disaster or a global problem may bring a lot of negative effects upon a brand name. In some cases, we even recommend to take into consideration to rename the brand. Which cases?

• If the brand has less than two years on the market
• If the brand has not such a big popularity
• If all the disclaimer messages and all the efforts to unrelate your brand name with the name of the disaster are worthless.
• If the sales are dropping very fast and you can not sustain anymore this decreasing

There a lot of more examples like Corona beer versus coronavirus.

1. Zica new brand car model versus Zika Virus

In 2016, Tata Motors ran into a serious naming problem. In November 2015, they have named their new hatchback car model: Zica. In March 2017 the car model had to be launched. But just two months before the launch something unexpected happened.

The Zika virus (a virus spread mostly by the bite of an infected Aedes species mosquito which has no vaccine or medicine) was threatening to derail the Rio Olympics.

Tata Motors had to make an important decision: Keeping the name Zica or changing it.

Instead of starting the life cycle of the new brand model with such a negative connotation, Tata Motors accepted the problem and has turned a crisis into a brand opportunity. They have publicly assumed their problem instead of trying to explain that their Zica has nothing to do with Zika Virus.

Zica became Tiago. Because sometimes in life is easier and safer to let it go. To rebuild than trying to repair and protect an already infected brand name.

2. Ayds versus AIDS

Ayds Reducing Plan Candy was an appetite – suppressant candy which was really popular and enjoyed big sales in 1970s and early 1980s and was originally manufactured by The Campana Company. It was available in chocolate, chocolate mint, butterscotch, and caramel flavors. The active ingredient was originally benzocaine, presumably to reduce the sense of taste to reduce eating.

What happened with Ayds?

By the mid-1980s, public awareness of the disease AIDS caused problems for the brand due to the phonetic similarity of names and the fact that the disease caused immense weight loss in patients. Initially sales were not affected, but in 1988 te company has started to seek for a new name due to the fact that the sales had dropped as much as 50% due to bad publicity related to the disease. The new product name was Diet Ayds, which was completely useless. They should have created a completely new name, unrelated to any word connected with the AIDS disease.

A renaming failure which has brought the company to be withdrawn from the market.

3. The ISIS brand name curse

In 2013, a Belgian chocolate maker founded in 1923 as “Italo Suisse” decided to shorten it to ISIS because it was no longer associated to either Italy or Switzerland. It seemed that was a terrible mistake they didn’t even know about. After the terrorist organization called Islamic State came out, the company’s sales have suffered heavily. So, they decided to rename again into Libeert.

In the same time in Queens, New York, the owner of ISIS Nails renamed the salon Bess Nails and Spa because of harassment. The salon’s revenue had declined by approximately 30% due to the name association with ISIS organization.

Unfortunate events happen all the time. In some cases, if you see that the sales are dropping very much, you must take an agile renaming decision in order to save your brand and your company. If you think that you are in the difficult situation of deciding to rename or not your brand, we are here for you. Just write us:

Photo source: https://www.mothership.sg/2020/01/corona-beer-virus/