Branding experts warned the former chief executive of what is now Aberdeen Group against changing its name to Abrdn and said it wanted to be distanced from any marketing.

Stephen Bird, who was appointed to what was Standard Life Aberdeen in 2020, decided to push on with the change of name which was subsequently ridiculed for removing most the vowels, leaving it difficult to pronounce.

The board supported Mr Bird’s plan after taking advice from Wolff Olins which had initially been attributed with the rebrand.

Aberdeen Group chairman Sir Douglas Flint told shareholders at the AGM in 2022 that the rebrand to Abrdn had been created internally and had been “benchmarked” against one of the big branding agencies.

He said the Standard Life brand was ‘amazing’ but it had been licensed to Phoenix when the Standard Life business was sold to the company.

“All the research we did showed the Standard Life brand was associated with insurance, not with investment management.”

Chief executive Stephen Bird told the same meeting that an independent measure of brand strength showed Standard Life was ranked 48th while four months after launching abrdn it was second to Blackrock. The indexing firm said they had never had a client climb so many places, he said.

Sources now say the agency had warned Mr Bird against the move, telling the Financial Times that it “did not test well” among focus groups.

Mr Bird went ahead with the rebrand in April 2021 but he left last May, to be replaced by CFO Jason Windsor who last week announced that it was being dropped in favour of the Aberdeen name.

Other sources have told Daily Business that despite claims that the change to ‘aberdeen’ will lead to negligible costs, it will still run into several millions that will be regarded as a waste of money.

The company also left its purpose-built head office in St Andrew Square after only six years to move back into its historic home in nearby George Street.