Remember 2008? Katy Perry was kissing a girl, while Guns ‘n’ Roses’ final album; Chinese Democracy made as much progress as the real thing; Manchester City were starting to dream of top-half finishes, and Indiana Jones returned to stink up our cinema screens. New brands were becoming household names, while older ones lost their grip.
2008 was when the Candy brothers met their Waterloo. Their project to redevelop the former Middlesex Hospital Building in Fitzrovia into a luxury residential and commercial complex was full steam ahead, and the millionaire tax exile property developers were the toast of London. Then it was announced that they intended to name their new property NoHo Square.
At first the idea was just scoffed at – a silly attempt to Americanize London (There’s a NoHo in New York, as well as a SoHo), and nothing more. But as the Candys stood their ground, insisting the rebranding stemmed from extensive research, and reflected their project’s contemporary outlook and the regeneration of the area, so opposition began to grow.
Local residents of US took objection to the implied link with hard-partying Soho, which despite it’s new cleaned-up image still retained a slightly sleazy vibe, that they felt would drag down Fitzrovia’s reputation (and no doubt property values). Petitions were started, celebrities, Councillors and business-owners joined forces and began speaking out against what they perceived as an attempt to replace the decades-old name of Fitzrovia with NoHo. It all began to get a bit messy.
The name NoHo was actually a little misleading – it is a shortened form of North of Soho, seemingly implying that Soho is south of…Oxford Street? Holborn? In fact Soho is believed to have originated from a former hunting cry. It was also used to rally the troops at the Battle of Sedgemoor. And as rallying calls go, NoHo was pretty effective. Unfortunately for the Candy’s though, it was called against them. The papers began to get interested, bloggers and activists got involved, arguments for and against were bandied around, and both sides remained intractable.
It was the Icelanders that brought the stand-off to an end. One of the biggest shareholders in the NoHo development was Icelandic bank Kaupthing, which went into administration during the financial crisis. They sold their stake and the Candy brothers departed the project, which was taken over by Stanhope plc. Soon after the building was completed, but now named Fitzroy Square in recognition of the strength of local feeling.
Check out easyoffices then you’ll no doubt find some, as the term is still frequently used by some residents and visitors. But this was actually a salutary lesson in how difficult a rebrand can be when approached the wrong way – if you can’t get your primary stakeholders on board, you’re unlikely to be successful.
Alex Mautz
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