BP is in the news again. It’s in trouble with Greenpeace for not going ‘Beyond Petroleum’ as it promised back in its Lord Browne-run rebranding heyday. It’s in strife for giving oil-spill CEO Tony Hayward too hefty a pay-off. It’s been in trouble with President Obama ever since its Gulf of Mexico leak hit his popularity and poisoned a sizeable chunk of the US coast.
We all remember his (and his officials) pointed barbs, calling the company ‘British Petroleum’ (damned foreigners!), a decade after BP ditched its ‘British’ tag. (BP is a multi-national, listed on both London and New York stock exchanges. It dropped the ‘British Petroleum’ name soon after it merged with Amoco – formerly the American Oil Company.)
How Hitler forced a Jaguar name change – and did he know his favourite marque was named after a rabbi’s grandchild?
Names, of course, can be highly emotive. Most Brits must be quietly pleased that BP is no longer officially British Petroleum, when we see TV pictures of oily pelicans, traumatised turtles and filthy brown beaches. Equally, it’s a good thing that Jaguar changed its name from SS Cars after the last world war. SS was not a popular set of initials in Britain in 1945. MG sounds better than Morris Garages. And how many people would really want a TVR if told it is an abbreviation of company founder Trevor Wilkinson’s first name?
Adolf Hitler, of course, was a great fan of Mercedes-Benz. He funded its racing team and used them as chauffeur driven cars of choice. But did he know that the name ‘Mercedes’ came from the granddaughter of a rabbi? I suspect not.
And let’s not tell our American friends that BP, before it became British Petroleum, was called the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Otherwise there may be cries to dispatch the B52s to Tehran.