In the wake of a scandal, renaming your organization can be a most effective gambit, according to an Washington Post article appearing in several newspapers today. The article lists several companies that have undergone post-crisis name changes, including ValuJet (AirTrans) and Worldcomm (MCI). I can think of a few others, including Anderson Consulting (Accenture), which wasn’t the focus of a scandal, but its affiliation with Arthur Anderson was all that was needed to paint it with the scandal brush.

The article quotes Dartmouth University professor of corporate communications Paul Argenti: “If you look at name changes in general, every single one of them has a positive effect, unless you change to initials. I can’t see any downside to it. ... In America you can always reinvent yourself.” Argenti studied some 40 name changes in arriving at his conclusion.