After the coronavirus appeared and caused a global pandemic up until today, we are now familiar with the word ‘Covid’. But do you know that there is an existing company in Arizona with the same name? It has been in business for about 4 decades!
Based in Tempe, Arizona, Covid. inc is a company that supplies first-rate audiovisual wall plates and cables to all around the world? It has been operating for decades but only starting to get a lot of attention when the virus with the same name as their company outbroke.
Norm Carson, the CEO of Covid. inc told about the first time he knew that they shared the name of the virus that caused the ongoing pandemic. It was when he and his team were in Amsterdam in February 2020, for a big audiovisual show. The name ‘Covid-19’ was said for the first time and Carson recalled posing in front of his company’s sign for a few pictures at their kiosk.
“We went in that day thinking we’d see some customers, do some training and it’d be a regular day. And then before you knew it, they had announced the name,” said Carson.
Originally, the company’s founders wanted to name it Video Company, or Video for short but the name ‘Vidco’ has been used by other companies.
“So they decided to have a contest and the UPS driver at the time came up with the name Covid instead of Vidco.”
Looking back, they could have spent more time finding a better name.
The good thing here is, most people don’t know the existence of this company as it sells through distributors and dealers but the CEO agreed that sharing the name of the world’s famous subject has led them to some funny situations. The classic one is, people randomly driving through the company’s gate, asking for Covid-19 tests after seeing the ‘Covid. inc’ sign on the building. Other than that, some people make jokingly suggest a new tagline for the company.
“You know, we get a lot of customers who always want to come up with our new taglines,” the Covid.inc CEO said. “‘Covid, we had it first.’ Or ‘The only thing that’s contagious is our quality.’ We get all kinds of jokes from people. And many people call and talk to us, and they just, ‘can you believe that?’ And you just smile a little bit and say, ‘yeah,’ and you just tell some of the stories that have happened because of it.”
Despite the unlucky name coincidence, Covid. inc is not planning on changing its name anytime in the future.
Sources: Oddity Central, NPR