Companies | Punamusta’s new name gave rise to a controversy: “We should expect more honesty and respect from a listed company”

As a media company formerly known as Punamusta, is currently Rebl Group, which focuses on marketing communications.

The company announced its name change on Wednesday.

The new name can be interpreted in two ways. On the one hand, it is an English pun on the company’s old name. Red is in English ed and black is black. The company has struck the first two letters into one of each word.

On the other hand, rebl sounds a little from a rebel. Rebel is Finnish for rebel.

CEO of Rebl Arttu Sallinen told you recently For Kauppalehtithat the company’s new name refers to both of the aforementioned interpretations.

According to him, Rebl not only respects the old name, but also evokes the idea of ​​”the company as a positive reformer of the marketing field, a kind of rebel”.

In a couple of days, Punamusta’s new name has already managed to attract reviews. However, the criticism is not related to the fact that the Finnish company has changed its Finnish name to an English one, or at least to an English-sounding one.

Two companies criticize Rebl Group for stealing their names.

About companies the first is Rebl Eats. It is an Espoo-based company that produces vegetable protein-based ready meals and snacks. Another of the companies is Rebel Group, a recycled clothing store operating in Jyväskylä.

Rebl Eats launched an online community service On Linkedin an article in which it says that it received an email from Rebl this week. In the email, Rebl talked about their recent name change and suggested that Rebl Eats could start buying their services.

In its article, Rebl Eats ponders whether the former Punamusta did not sacrifice the idea at all to the fact that there is already one company called Rebl operating in Finland.

“They seem to have earned the right to use the name, but shouldn’t we expect a little more honesty and respect from a publicly traded company,” Rebl Eats writes on Linkedin.

“And now Goliath appears in our backyard, claiming to be Rebl now, with the same unique typo. As a small David, we can’t do anything about it if Goliath, who has a turnover 20 times ours, decides to trample on our brand work without caring about anything.”

Rebl Eats founder Martti Paatela tells HS that the Rebl Eats brand has been built with great effort for three years.

He fears that the young growth company will now be overshadowed by Rebl Group in communication, because the spelling of the names of the companies is so similar.

“When a listed company’s resources are used to push a new name and logo to different channels, confusion and confusion do follow. If a customer, store chain or job seeker types Rebl into Google, they may end up on Rebl Group’s pages instead of ours.”

Co-founder of Rebl Eats Valerie Asuntan according to the company, the company has already gotten a little taste of the possible “communication confusion”.

“In the last few days, we have received congratulations to Rebl Group for listing on the stock exchange.”

Also CEO of Jyväskylä-based Rebel Group Timo Vilpponen has expressed his regret about Punamusta’s name change.

Vilpponen tells For Kauppalehtithat he has complained about the matter to the Patent and Registration Board (PRH). However, PRH has accepted the name.

Information about Punamusta’s new name was transmitted to Vilpponen from the news stream.

“We were surprised that how close the names can be to each other? The names have a difference of one letter, but they ar
e pronounced the same,” he tells Kauppalehte.

He also wonders to Kauppalehti whether the imagination of the marketing communication company was not enough to come up with another name.

“Why couldn’t a name that is not already in use be used? If there were even Rbel Solutions or Rbel Media, we could live with that.”

of Rebl Group CEO Arttu Sallinen says that the company’s intention was not to copy or steal a new name from other companies. He emphasizes that the company ended up with its current name above all based on its old name.

“Rebl Group is directly descended from Punamusta. The name is also part of the company’s strategic change. If PRH had seen an obstacle here, of course we would not have changed the company’s name to the current one.”

Sallinen does not believe that three companies with the same name will mix with each other. He emphasizes that all companies also operate in different industries.

“In a way, I understand the annoyance of the other two companies. On the other hand, there are a large number of similar names.”

PRH cannot change the name after registration, says PRH’s team leader and lawyer Henrik Räihä. He says that PRH resolved the name issue in accordance with the Business Names Act and in accordance with trade register practice.

According to Räihä, the owners of Rebl Eats and Rebel Group still have the option to sue Rebl Group in the market court if they feel that the registration of the company’s new name is against the law and will cause harm. Registration can be revoked by a court decision.

“Another option is that the companies can still try to agree and negotiate about name changes,” says Räihä.

Rebl Eats founder Paatela says the company is considering its options. He says that the company initially applied for a trademark for both its current and planned operations.

“Even though we operate in a different field than Rebl Group, we may now overlap and intersect in different communication and marketing channels in the building of brands. This is an unnecessary and additional additional challenge, especially when both companies are moving from the domestic market to foreign markets.”