When it comes to announcements regarding people or companies changing names or addresses, print rules. One glance at the classified section of dailies should be adequate proof of this. So, it wasn't altogether surprising that one of the most high-intensity print campaigns of August and September had everything to do with India's largest truck-maker changing its name. The campaign itself was nice in a touchy-feely sort of way: soft focus visuals, a complete absence of the predictable cars or trucks, lots of text, a few subtle pats-on-the-back and a few more not so subtle ones, and the announcement about the change in name.

For those who missed the campaign, this was all about Tata Engineering changing its name to Tata Motors. The company had originally been christened Tata Engineering & Locomotive Company when it was founded in 1945, but the name had been rapidly abbreviated to TELCO (tell ko, phonetically) and then changed, not too long ago, into Tata Engineering. Tata Motors isn't a bad choice: After selling 2.2 million trucks and buses, putting India's first indigenously developed car on the roads, and establishing a presence in 70 countries, any company can be pardoned a little hubris; and Tata Motors may well have adopted its present name to indicate its aspiration to be a global car maker of note.

Every car major in the world loves the suffix 'Motors'. General Motors. Ford Motor Company. DaimlerChrysler Motors. Honda Motors. Hyundai Motors. Suzuki Motors.

Tata Engineering isn't alone. Not too long ago a clutch of Indian cellular phone companies in which Hong Kong's Hutchison Whampoa had a controlling stake changed its name to Hutch, creating in the process, what was then the country's second largest cellular network. VAM Organics morphed into Jubilant Organosys in late 2001, replete with a logo redesigned by Shombit Sengupta's Shining Strategic Design. Chennai-based FMCG upstart Chik India turned into Beauty Cosmetics, and again into CavinKare — whether this was a play of its founder CK Ranganathan's initials or Calvin Klein, or both isn't known — in 1998. Tobacco major ITC dropped its dots (it was I.T.C. before) in 2001. Then there's the by-now well-chronicled example of Asea Brown Boveri becoming ABB — and how the company used the change in name to create a new organisational culture — internationally and in India, in 1993. More recently, Philip Morris became Altria, a play on the Latin word for height.

So, why do companies change names? And does it really make any difference to the way they do business and the people they do it with? "Well, some (old) names give out wrong equities," explains marketing consultant Harish Bijoor. "ITC, now, isn't just about tobacco." His reference is to the fact that the company's old name I.T.C., drew attention to the dots, normally used in abbreviations, thereby harking back to the full form Imperial (and then Indian) Tobacco Company. That wouldn't do, not when the company was diversifying into hospitality, food, infotech, and other services.

Bombay House, the Tata Group's nerve centre, has been abuzz with proposals to change TELCO's name since the mid-1990s. First, the company had to focus on improving its own skills, in design, manufacturing, and marketing. Then, between 2000 and 2002, with its performance flagging (and bottomline bleeding), the company couldn't change its name — any move would have been seen by shareholders as an effort to deflect focus from financials. Now, says a Tata Motors spokesperson, "It's all about growth and a bit of international aspiration." "We are driving a change in mindset through this new name, embarking on a journey that will be increasingly global," he adds. That may sound strikingly superficial, but spin-doctoring, it isn't: Tata Motors is in the middle of an exercise that involves cost reduction, business restructuring, quality upgradation, and product development.

The desire to use the occasion to communicate a change in direction, reckon experts, is the best reason for a company to want to change its name. Consider the case of 20-year-old VAM Organics. VAM is an abbreviation for vinyl acetate monomer, not exactly the most creative name for a company. Still, until the mid-1990s most of the company's revenues came from this bulk chemical, and the name was fine. By the end of the same decade, though, things had changed: specialty chemicals accounted for half of VAM Organics' revenues. And so, after much soul-searching, the company changed its name to Jubilant Organosys. "The new name reflects a change in our focus from bulk chemicals to being a knowledge-driven company," says Shyam Bhartia, Chairman and Managing Director. That, he explains, is much like an internal mission statement, a statement by the company that it is no longer a mere dabbler in commodity chemicals. The new name, and the new tack, helped the stock soar, and it enabled the company hold its own against international competition.

Indeed, companies that merely change their names, without doing any of the other things they need to do to convince customers and other stakeholders that something about them is different, will, more often than not, fall flat in their effort. "Rebranding isn't something that spills out of the billboard," says Harit Nagpal, Vice President (Corporate Marketing), Hutch. For Hutch, which was launching its eponymous brand for the first time anywhere in the world in Delhi in June 2002, the exercise went back to late 2001. "We brought all our billing, product, customer services, feedback and supplier-led processes around what the consumer wanted, and not what we had to offer," says Nagpal.

So, will Tata Motors' new image go down well with customers? Only its next quarter's sales will tell.