Datsun, NO! – WKICU?

Dear friends,

(An 1870 oil painting by Ford Madox Brown

depicting Romeo and Juliet's famous balcony scene.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Shakespeare wrote: “What’s in a name.”

This is one of the many famous quotes from Shakespeare’s (†1616) numerous works. What’s in a name is from the well known Romeo & Juliet tale, where Juliet says:

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”

In Shakespeare's lyrical tale Juliet tells Romeo that a name is an artificial and meaningless convention, and that she loves the person who is called Romeo Montague, not the Montague name and not the Montague family.

Written about 400 years ago people now still use the phrase but in different interpretations according to the particular situation they are in when they say that.

I am Hanafi Daud, Daud the Indonesian Californian. I love my name, my wife loves me including my name….. So, don’t mess with Hanafi Daud (person or name… :) .

In our world today a name is certainly much more than just a name of a person or an object’s name. After a certain time, after aging, a name become historical, can create emotions, accumulates economical value, builds goodwill, can become symbolic, and more.

If you buy hamburger fast food franchise, what do you buy? The system? Yes, but system is not the big factor. What is the difference between one system of one franchiser and another franchiser? Almost no difference. The big difference is in the brand name. You pay for the brand name. The more famous the brand is, the higher the franchise fee.

A good case study about brand name is what happened with Datsun brand name. Datsun is produced by Nissan Motor Company. This Japanese car manufacturer in Indonesia was Indokaya Nissan Motors, working with Indonesian partners.

In Japan, Nissan’s president Kawamata regretted that Nissan Motors did not imprint its corporate name on cars the way Toyota does. Ultimately, the decision was made to stop using the brand name Datsun worldwide, in order to strengthen the company name Nissan. In Indonesia at that time rumors that went around was that American consumers hate the name Datsun. Maybe this was also one of the important reason Nissan changed Datsun cars to Nissan cars. The same manufacturer, the same cars.

So, What’s in a Name?

Warga Katolik Indonesia California Utara has been around 20 years. (Refer to my first post, 7-14 about who and what is WKICU). WKICU does not cover the whole North California. In reality it covers only a small part. The three Sunday masses in three different cities are all in SF Bay Area: the 1^st in San Francisco, the 2^nd in Santa Clara and the 3rd in Union City. Membership-wise, as far as I know, WKICU members are spread from the (San Francisco) Peninsula to San Jose to the South, to the East up to Pinole, to the North and Northeast reaching Petaluma and Antioch.

Practically WKICU covers only SF Bay Area. Maybe that’s why a couple of years ago Indonesian Catholics in the state capitol Sacramento formed their own group, KKI Sacramento.

Now, in 2011 after 20 years, more and more WKICU members suggest for a name change that reflects the actual WKICU area and some even suggest change to KKI since the majority of Indonesian Catholic groups in USA use KKI followed by the name of the state or region. But as we see in my first posting, there are some groups who use the English abbreviation ICC (= Indonesian Catholic Community) instead of KKI and even totally different name such as Paguyuban Katolik Indonesia Chicago.

We know that changing names of an entity, is it a company, organization, institution, brand, is not that simple. It will involve changing too many things like legal papers, documents, address, logo, and what not, and more important is losing history and goodwill.

If I own WKICU, I don’t want to change the name. If people ask what is WKICU short for, I will tell them that WKICU is just a name, period. Or I try to keep the name WKICU, and explain WKICU means Wahana (=vehicle for conveying thoughts, ideas) Katolik Indonesia Community, and than add SFBay Area. Even how crazy it may sound, like We are Katolik Indonesia Community SFBay Area, as long as I can keep the name WKICU.

Any suggestion?

Anyway, do you agree “What’s in a name?”