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In the early 1990s a company called Federal Express, which revolutionized the process and shipping habits of businesses and individuals, was then expanding into global markets. As the shipping firm looked to modernize its corporate brand, the brand owners realized that more than a cosmetic face-lift was needed for its dated-looking purple logo. The company set about completely overhauling the identity from the visual design to the corporate name to the names of everything that it offered – from services to drop boxes to shipping containers, all of which totaled over 100 names. Research findings at the time showed that customers didn’t understand what FedEx’s services were because the service names weren’t explicitly helpful. “In some cases they were using acronyms that didn’t mean anything,” says Dave Hurlbert, then director of naming at Landor. “Even some of the people at FedEx didn’t know what they were. We made everything into plain English.”

Gayle Christensen, global brand management director of FedEx, agrees that the names were all over the map and needed to be modernized. The company implemented a nomenclature system that relies solely upon the FedEx brand married with real English words to describe the operating company, product or service clearly. The result is services and products with names like FedEx Freight, FedEx Box, and FedEx 2Day. The names still work a decade later.