What are they
thinking, in the leadership suites of PricewaterhouseCoopers? As reported by
Caleb Newquist (here),
coming days will see their lengthy if perfectly serviceable name abandoned in
favor of the three-letter vernacular – and the adoption of a new toy-blocks
logo that defies the search for adjectives of awfulness.

 The commentary will
be fierce, in several areas off my turf:

• Branding experts
  will go to town on the empty nature of the attempted graphic gesture.
  
• Jargon critics such
  as the Financial Times’s Lucy Kellaway will tee off on the mish-mashed vacuity
  of the aspirational messages (for those of strong constitution, see this PwC video
  sent to Caleb from the inside).
• Charlie Green, expert in
  trustworthiness, is invited to unpack the disruptive influence of tinkering
  with messages, when all that is on offer is the stability of relationships with
  clients and users.
  

My concern is more
profound:

When the accounting
profession’s very survival rests on the ability to sell a basic core product –
assurance on financial information – the essence of that delivery is the
maintenance of confidence among issuers and users in consistent, solid and
predictable quality service.

That has been more
than challenge enough, in difficult times for the profession. But its messages
can and should be pretty stolid. A slightly boring orthodoxy is not a bad
thing, when the profession is the only one that requires two terms to describe
itself and its core offerings: accountant and
auditor – contrasted with, for example, doctor, lawyer, priest or
engineer. 

When the uniform
for successful assurance delivery requires the equivalent emotional symbolism
of a necktie and brown shoes, the PwC effort goes the wrong way. Being courant requires context. No chief
financial officer will be comfortable receiving his annual audit report from
the hands of an engagement partner named Pariz or Tiffany and sporting a tattoo
and a nose ring.

Prior history
offers instruction on the hazards of tinkering with the image of a commodity
product. The fiasco over New Coke in 1985 put that company into a legendary
market-share tangle that lasted for years.

Much closer to
home, does nobody recall the kerfuffle in 2000 when Arthur Andersen gave up the
logo of its dependable brown doors – symbol of stability, consistency across
all offices and – yes – the requisite geeky solidarity? 

Instead there was
launched that goofy orange ball – derided at the time for a lack of substance,
but with hindsight, comprehensible to reflect the firm’s hollowed-out loss of
strategic integrity and, in effect, the sunset for a venerable institution less
than two years later.

We may of course
expect defensive messages from the branding types at PwC, justifying what must
be massive expenditure for this effort, along the lines of “we wanted to shake
things up” and “we have an exciting new set of messages.”

Trouble is, they
don’t, and the world of assurance users doesn’t want it. The depth of the
issues facing the accounting profession means that the current environment does
not require simplistic needs to “fix what ain’t broken.”

Rather, putting
fresh cosmetics on a critical patient only paints over the gruesome reality.
And if the beauticians are running the hospital ward, the prognosis for
recovery is grim indeed.

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