We would really appreciate it if you just called us by our new nickname.

The electronics retail store formally known as Radio Shack.

Radio Shack, in some over-reaching attempt to be "cool and hip" has asked the general public to call it by it's new name "The Shack". You know, because that's everyone calls it anyway, right?

First of all, everyone knows one of the best ways to be cool is to not go around telling people that you're cool. And don't make up nicknames for yourself. That's everyone else's job. A nickname is supposed to be spontaneous and organic, not forced. Just ask George "T-Bone" Costanza.

But forcing the issue they are, in an apparent attempt to ditch "radio" which doesn't seem like a hip technology. But here's a news flash: "Shack" doesn't evoke a sense of progressive, forward-thinking retail either.

But Radio Shack management claims that like FedEx and Coke, the brand has truncated its name because they're simply embracing what the public had already come to affectionately call them. Maybe, but Federal Express was increasingly dealing with the contradiction between their name and the fact that they were a global brand, and Coca-Cola doesn't mind which name you call them. They just don't want you calling them Pepsi. And last time I checked, both Coke and FedEx had a lot more friends than Radio Shack. Ahem, excuse me, "The Shack".

"Our customers, associates and even the investor community have long referred to RadioShack as 'The Shack,' so we decided to embrace that fact and share it with the world," said Lee Applbaum, RadioShack's chief marketing officer, in a statement.

What a tick, did you say customers? Hey, I'm a customer and if I told my wife I was heading down to The Shack she'd ask what I'd been smoking. If you prod their ad agency on if customers really call them "The Shack" this is what they say:

"When we pitched the business with this idea, they told us "The Shack" has been an internal name for years, their sales associates affectionately refer to the company that way." -BSSP ECD John Butler



Hmmm... okay so it's the internal nerds call themselves The Shack and now they're hoping the propaganda gets them invited to the cool kids table? Most likely a poor move that will have them hanging by their underwear in a cold, dark locker. The only redeeming quality in all of this is the PR and buzz that will surround this move (after all we're blogging this, right?). And it turns out, Radio Shack as a company is NOT changing it's name, or the letterhead on its stationary or the sign above their retail stores. They just would really appreciate it if you called them something cooler.

...Please?