Orange CH name change - 23.04.2015

Tech, TV, Mobile, Internet and Geek Corner
1
As you might know, Orange was recently sold by the UK investment company that owned it to a French business man (Xavier Niel) who owns the mobile phone company Free in France.

The agreement with France Telecom (who used to own Orange CH) to use the name Orange in CH is set to expire in March 2017. It has has been costing Orange CH a total of CHF 20 million per year for the rights.

In any event, the new owners will announce the new name for Orange CH on April 23rd.

2
I suggest St.George - but the Frenchies wouldn't buy that.

3
How many people think that they'll call it Free Switzerland? Or is it too obvious?

4

Unlikely to happen as Sunrise owns that brand name. Of course, they could be buying it from them.

5
))

This is a contradiction... free and Switzerland There is nothing free here :P

To make it more adjusted to reality here it could be: 'Freely Switzerlanded'

6
FYI...Xavier Niel also bought Orange Liechstenstein operator, he uses the brand 7acht.li now.

7
Wasn't the Orange name change a build up to an April Fools joke?

They published on the 1 April that te options were Black, Banana and something else ridiculous.

8
It's not a joke:

http://new.orange.ch/en

9
The new corporate colour of Orange will be... GREEN!

10
And according to NZZ, the new name is SALT. We will see.

The other "scoop" from the NZZ article on Sunday was that the new company will take a "premium" positioning. Not good for the competitive landscape in CH.

The stores will be closed for 72 hours to do the re-branding.

11
Seems the comedy show "26 Minutes" was spot on a month ago:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvLU83Y8pCc

Also regarding the "premium" pricing:

"We're going to offer the same service we do in France, only much more expensive. That's how foreign companies in Switzerland have always operated - You look for the money where the money is!"

12
I'm tied in with Orange until Aug and so if they touch my legacy tariff I should have grounds to terminate early... win win

As for calling the network Salt??? I could well imagine it came out of a 'brainstorming' session of Frenglish speakers

13
I don't know -- nobody has a problem (any more) with brand names like Virgin, Apple, Smile...

14
How is that possible??? Anything more "premium" than Swisscom is just too expensive to imagine!

15
the salt.ch website has content and style that could fit an orange rebranding. It is registered to legal advisors that were involved in the orange sale. So, it could be plausible. But still not a name I'd vote for in a consumer focus group.

16
Virgin = Cheeky, rebellious, young

Apple = Pure, simple, hippy

etc.. etc..

What images do 'Salt' conjure up apart from arterial hypertension and one half of an 80's rap duet? What I'm saying 22 Yards is that the name sucks, and I don't want it on my phone

17
Wasn't there a treaty to limit strategic arms, also in the 80's?

(no throwing of oranges, allowed)

18
There are various sexual connotations...

19
Premium positioning? That's insalting.

20
Until 2016 November for me. Waiting to see if they are making any super big changes to my contract.