McDonald's recently announced that it would be re-branding a
number of its Australian outlets as Macca's. Why? Well, because
that's apparently how many Australians refer to the fast food
chain – a survey shows that some 55% of Australians use the
name Macca's instead of McDonald's. Australians are,
of course, particularly fond of nicknames, and a company
spokesman had this to say: 'We've been a part of Australia
for over 40 years now and we're incredibly proud to embrace our
"Australian-only" nickname. What better way to show
Aussies how proud we are to be a part of the Australian community
than by changing our store signs to the name the community has
given us?'
This is, it must be said, highly unusual stuff! Although
we're sometimes told that it's the customer who owns the
brand, this basically refers to the fact that a brand is little
more than the opinion that the customer has of it. Letting the
customer decide on the brand name is...well...another
