The Binches of Meteorology (BoM) has politely asked the rest of Australia to stop calling it “The BoM” and “the Weather Bureau”. Instead, it would prefer if we called it “The Bureau”. It’s cool like that. It’s so cool it could make cold fronts look HOT. The problem is though, “The Bureau” did not secure the Twitter handles for this big rebrand.
To respect the wishes of The Bureau, I shall be henceforth referring to it as The Bureau Formerly Known As BoM (TBFKABoM).
TBFKABoM revealed today that it’d be rebranding in a press release and asked all publications to update its style guide. Our very own PTV style guide explicitly says “Binches of Meteorology”, so it really burst my raincloud to find that TBFKABoM didn’t like this name. It’d be pleased to know I’ve updated it accordingly.
#BREAKING: The BoM has asked media not to call them “The BoM” in future coverage @6NewsAU pic.twitter.com/RtA3vOqRhQ
— Leonardo Puglisi (@Leo_Puglisi6) October 17, 2022
This shift in name (and attitude) wasn’t exactly done in the way you’d expect. You’d think if your big business was doing a big rebrand, you’d at least secure the usernames necessary beforehand. But alas, TBFKABoM did not plan ahead.
Some swift Aussies got the names first and the results were simply… *meteorologist’s kiss*.
Absolute rookie mistake by the Bureau of Meteorology to announce what they were changing their Twitter handle to BEFORE they actually did it 😆 pic.twitter.com/O6kqpg2D6v
— Keelan (@I_am_da_BOM) October 18, 2022
https://twitter.com/TheBureau_Qld/status/1582161352457523200?s=20&t=FiFxn-GhfuDx0Qmjwte59w
Something about all this chaos really tickles my low-pressure system.
They should have rebranded to The Bureau of Mess (BoM).
all three of the twitter handles the BOM planned to change their accounts to – @thebureau_au, @thebureau_nsw & @thebureau_act have all been taken within minutes of the media release coming out https://t.co/fA8ESHOUVr pic.twitter.com/O4JJSj79Wt
— Leonardo Puglisi (@Leo_Puglisi6) October 18, 2022
In the midst of the Twitter chaos, journalist and author Rick Morton discovered TBFKABoM hired a PR firm for $70,000 to help with their massive rebrand. Yes, that’s 70,000 whole entire real dollars to remove the “of Meteorology” from the name and forget to update socials. For that amount of money they could’ve hired me as a new, sexy gay weatherman.
Although the PR firm is called “The C Word” (which sounds fun, fresh and youthful) I must ask why they thought The Bureau was a good name? It sounds like some secret entity from Men In Black. It lacks the gaiety and sexuality fun that comes with telling the weather.
If I was TBFKABoM I would rename to BoM Dot Com or BoM Baddies. Something that really gets the kids into weather. But alas, we have The Bureau. How bureing.
Here’s the contract, almost $70,000 for a PR firm called The C Word from September last year to help with rebranding the Bureau of Meteorology. Wonder what the advice was? Thanks to @CamDimsey for ferreting this out. https://t.co/r9Iwnqb6TQ
— Rick Morton (@SquigglyRick) October 18, 2022
Here’s to TBFKABoM on their ambitious new name. May it continue to provide us with hot and steamy weather updates so that we may make horny rain jokes and continue to call the agency something other than “The Bureau”.