The consultants who rebranded the Royal Mail’s parent company in 2001 were looking for a name that could mean anything, to encompass the fact that the Post Office plc (as it was then) was embarking on a future in which it did far more than deliver letters. They settled on a name that meant nothing – Consignia – and after just over a year of contempt and derision, they changed it to Royal Mail Group.
In July, the name changed again, and if anything the new name (International Distributions Services) is even more tedious, but this time it does actually mean something. This is a company of two parts: the Royal Mail, which has committed to deliver a letter anywhere in Britain for a fixed price since 1839 and was privatised in 2013, and the less memorable GLS (General Logistics Systems), an international parcel delivery service based in Amsterdam. The rebrand to International Distributions Services implies a commitment to the latter and, almost certainly, the splitting off of the Royal Mail.
Content from our partners
