'Y' is for Verizon? Oath is rebranding as Verizon Media Group, but the company appears to have flubbed the announcement
- Oath is changing its name to Verizon Media Group, according to an announcement Tuesday.
- News of the rebranding was accompanied with what many guessed to be the new logo - the letter "Y."
- The Y logo appears to have been a gaffe that immersed the rebranding effort in confusion.
Verizon announced Tuesday that Oath, the business unit comprising Yahoo and AOL, will be rebranded as Verizon Media Group starting January 8.
But the brand's name change wasn't what necessarily caught the attention of those who viewed the announcement. Instead, people were puzzled by the graphic at the top of the announcement - a purple box with the letter "Y."
It was not clear whether the graphic was supposed to be the new logo for the rebranded business. Although the purple and white Y is very likely related to Yahoo (which uses a similar looking purple Y in its logo), Verizon's use of the Y seemed incongruous with the new Verizon branding.
And Twitter users didn't waste any time in roasting the company.
Verizon did not immediately respond to Business Insider's inquiry seeking clarification about the "Y" logo.
But later on Tuesday, the announcement had been updated. Gone was the "Y" logo. In its place was a box bearing the names of various Verizon Media Group owned brands, such as Yahoo!, Yahoo! Mail, Tumblr, Aol, and HuffPost.
News of Oath's rebranding comes a week after Verizon said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing it expected to write down the value of Oath by $4.6 billion. The write-down was due to competitive pressures in the digital ad business, Verizon said.
Business Insider first broke the news in April 2017 that the combined unit of AOL and Yahoo would be named "Oath." The new division was created following Verizon's acquisition of Yahoo for about $4.8 billion in cash.
Read more: AOL and Yahoo plan to call themselves by a new name after the Verizon deal closes: Oath
Verizon paid about $9 billion to acquire AOL and Verizon. The integration of the two companies as Oath never achieved the benefits Verizon hoped for, the company said in its SEC filing.