Posted on 01/12/2010 5:19:25 AM PST by Loyalist
Canada's second oldest magazine -- the venerable, Winnipeg-based history publication The Beaver -- has been forced to change its name after 90 years because the title's inadvertently sexual connotation is getting caught in spam filters and preventing the publisher from reaching a new, life-sustaining generation of readers online.
The surprising rationale behind the rebranding plan wasn't revealed in a statement issued yesterday announcing that the magazine -- being relaunched under the name Canada's History -- would hit newsstands in April.
But Deborah Morrison, president of Canada's National History Society and the longtime publisher of The Beaver, told Canwest News Service that the unfortunate double entendre has posed serious difficulties for several years as the magazine attempted to attract new, younger, Web-based customers to bolster its loyal but aging base of about 50,000 print subscribers.
"To be perfectly blunt about it, The Beaver was an impediment on the Internet," she said. "People were literally writing us and saying, 'We can't get your e-newsletter because it's being spam-filtered out, can you change the title of the heading?' "
Ms. Morrison says the history society -- which is in the midst of rationalizing all of its educational and publishing brands under the "Canada's History" title -- was being blocked from key demographic groups because of the flagship magazine's incidentally X-rated name.
"There were some really unfortunate but practical reasons why The Beaver couldn't be the universal brand," said Ms. Morrison. "That's the factor why it was a deterrent -- particularly amongst women and people under the age of 45."
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalpost.com ...
Some jokes just write themselves.
Times are tough on the beaver....................
‘We can’t get your e-newsletter because it’s being spam-filtered out, can you change the title of the heading?’
Can’t these morons just change their spam filter?
2nd oldest mag? I wonder what the oldest is? The Bush?...........
Actually, it’s a cat-lovers’ magazine and.......well.......
They’re being a little hard on The Beaver...they need to think out of the box and stop hiding their light under a bush. What a bunch of boobs.
Beaver Throws in the Rag.............
sounds like they need to trim things down at the beaver...tighten their belts...and not let the pussies...those cunning runts (excuse my dyslexia) interweb nazis tell them what to call their rag.....
I’m going to bed now....I’m bushed.
Gee, Wally...
That reminds me of the college in north Philly called Beaver College. Changed its name about 10 years ago to Arcadia. Same problem as this magazine faces.
So what we have here is a hairless beaver?
Maclean’s hasn’t been a leftist rag since Ken Whyte from the National Post took the helm. Mark Steyn has a regular column in it, as do several other Canadian conservative writers.
It’s also become a much more interesting read when it ceased to be a lockstep imitation of Time.
LOL. Knew that was coming. Congrats on being the first!
Gimme a Molsons.
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