Comcast’s New Spinoff Company Name Raises a Slippery Question: What’s a Versant?

On Tuesday, Comcast’s cable networks turned the newest massive firm to announce a reputation change. As a badge for the cable community portfolio it plans to spin off (together with CNBC and USA), it’s ditching the momentary identify of SpinCo in favor of Versant.

SpinCo wasn’t a family identify, so Comcast’s gamble might be much less chancy than the retagging of different high-profile corporations in latest occasions. These embrace Recognition Music, the brand new deal with for Hipgnosis as of final month, and As Ever, the identify Meghan Markle picked in February to interchange her American Riviera Orchard model.

Naming is severe enterprise within the branding realm, and the monikers are likely to comply with established patterns. Assuming a model doesn’t take the identify of its founder or proprietor (Newman’s Personal, Ben & Jerry’s) or isn’t fully made up (Ikea, Sony), names are sometimes portmanteaus, which have the benefit of a well-known sound and twin which means. Accenture is a portmanteau of accent and future, for instance. Kenvue—the identify Johnson & Johnson slapped on its client division in 2023—is the same union of ken (data) and vue, a stylized model of “view.”

Is that what Versant is? Versatility plus conversant? Truly, no.

Comcast took the naming street much less traveled, by selecting a phrase already within the dictionary, one which few individuals, if any, know the which means of. (It happens .03 occasions each million phrases in trendy speech, in accordance with the Oxford English Dictionary). Versant, NBCUniversal VP of inventive advertising and marketing Mike DeRienzo defined in audio obtained by Deadline, “says energy, ahead motion.”

Properly, sorta. Merriam-Webster defines Versant as “conversant” and the Cambridge dictionary defines it as a mountainside. The Collins dictionary elaborates by saying that whereas versant is a slope, it’s a downward slope.

“Versant is a head scratcher,” mentioned Alexandra Watkins, founding father of product naming consultancy Eat My Phrases. “Whereas it could sound trendy, suggesting a downward incline isn’t precisely the model power most corporations intention for. Names ought to elevate, and this one suggests an reverse trajectory.”

Model identification knowledgeable Rachel Bernard, founding father of the agency Elements of Speech, informed ADWEEK that “as a result of so many manufacturers share frequent themes of versatility and connectivity, versant and different comparable root phrases are well-tread sources of inspiration. However in all of the occasions I’ve encountered this identify, it’s by no means been offered with its extra obscure literal definition. There are only a few items or companies the place a downward slope would have a constructive affiliation, besides perhaps downhill snowboarding.”

For his half, Mark Lazarus, the chief destined to steer the brand new firm, defined in a workers memo that versant “speaks to our adaptability” and can assist to “signify a united route ahead.”

Nonetheless the market interprets Versant, Comcast seems to have hedged its bets slightly.

“We’re going to concentrate on the person manufacturers that we’ve got, not the company identify,” Lazarus informed CNBC, which is itself a kind of manufacturers. “This can be a holding firm identify. It’s going for use for business-to-business functions.”