Consumer Law

Enter ThePopTort?s AIG Renaming Contest!

By Andy Hoffman

As some of you may know, AIG has been going through something of an identity crisis in recent weeks.  Apparently, helping to bring the nation to the brink of financial ruin and requiring billions of taxpayer bailout money, while continuing to send execs on expensive vacations and paying them $165 million in bonuses, hasn?t exactly done wonders for the brand.

With that in mind, the geniuses at AIG decided to come up with the worst idea to disguise its identity since Superman decided to don a pair of glasses and call himself Clark Kent.  From now on, ?AIG? would be known as ?AIU!? 

The company quickly began putting its taxpayer bailout money to work by printing up business cards and promotional materials that reflected its excellent new name.  Unfortunately, however, the New York Times is now reporting that AIG?s brilliant scheme may not have worked so well after all.  Or as Leslie J. Mouat, ?AIU?s? regional president for Southeast Asia put it, ?The advice we?ve received is A.I.U. may be a bit close to A.I.G.?we don?t want to appear as the same leopard with different spots.?  (We might also add, Mr. Mouat, that ?AIU? has an unfortunately similar ring to it as ?I.O.U.?)

Be that as it may, Mouat also told the Times that a ?small committee of company executives has narrowed down a list of potential [replacement] names to two or three.?  Pardon us for being a bit skeptical, but those of us at ThePopTort have learned not to have too much confidence when it comes to AIG, AIU, or whatever it is?and we?d hate to see more taxpayer dollars spent on business cards that ultimately have to be dumped in some landfill.

So we?re calling on you, readers of ThePopTort, to help AIG/AIU rename itself.  We?ll even call it a contest.  Send your suggestions to ThePopTort@gmail.com and we?ll print the best ones.  The winner will get a free lifetime subscription to ThePopTort, along with the satisfaction of having saved American taxpayers the cost of printing even more worthless AIG/AIU business cards!  Just think of it!  Enter today!

Full post as published by ThePopTort on April 30, 2009 (boomark / email).