You can’t fault Lippincott for persisting with corporate names based on the word ‘allegiance’.
The Pledge of Allegiance is a daily ritual for most American school children and, in spite of its feudal etymology, the distinct overtones of patriotic loyalty resonate positively with people.
No surprise then that it’s a wildly popular base word in naming. There are, literally, hundreds of ‘Allegiance’ names and its variants for companies in every conceivable business category.
The latest coinage is ‘Allegion’, the new corporate name for Ingersoll Rand’s commercial and residential security business that owns unsexy lock brands such as Schlage and Legge.
Lippincott says of their handiwork: “The selected name, Allegion, conveys the close, collaborative and long-term relationships (allegiances) that the company builds with customers. It also refers to the diverse legion of experts company-wide and suggests the protection and strength that the brand’s security solutions provide.”
It makes you wonder if, in the client evaluation of Allegion, the subject of its first cousin ‘Allegis’ ever came up. It’s a story that Lippincott knows well.
It starts in 1979 when Richard J. Ferris became chief executive of UAL Inc., the parent company of United Airlines. He spoke with messianic zeal of his visionary concept of a one-stop fly-drive-sleep behemoth that would take care of the major needs of travelers. In a two-year span Ferris spent $2.3 billion in pursuit of his vision, acquiring Hertz Car Rental, Westin and Hilton International hotel chains.
In February 1987 he changed the name of UAL Inc. to Allegis Corp. to reflect the broadened scope of his travel enterprise.
“We are a travel company, not just a transportation company”, he said. “The name change clearly identifies us as the only corporation that can offer travelers door-to-door service.”
Wall Street hated the strategy and analysts and institutional investors focused their displeasure on the name. Donald Trump, never at a loss for a pithy remark, said Allegis “sounds like the next world-class disease.” Wall Street wags joined in; Allegis Corp. became Egregious Corp.
Unnerved by the ridicule, Allegis directors finally bowed to pressure from dissident shareholders who threatened a proxy fight to replace the board. They forced Ferris to resign, symbolically changed the name back to UAL, and began to dismember the company.
It was Lippincott (and Margulies) who came up with the Allegis name. They explained it thus at the time: “Allegis conveys the central corporate mission of service and guardianship … through its relation to the word allegiant, meaning loyal or faithful, and aegis, meaning protection and sponsorship.”
Now, for me, notions of guardianship, fidelity and protection sound like a much better set of attributes for a security company than a travel company. Too bad for Allegion they had already been pinned to Allegis.
Of course, there was nothing wrong with Allegis as a name. It lives on quite happily today in various corporate guises; here, here and here, for example. Leave it to Donald Trump to provide a fitting epitaph:
“The name change made me more militant as an investor and more willing to speak out against management, because I thought it was so wrong,” he said in the New York Times. ”And I think it had an important psychological role. It brought out even more anger at management and made a lot of people say they had finally had it.”
In other words – if all else fails, attack the name.
See also: Allegis, the name that died of shame.
Namedroppings. 