The message? What a company with history, and a sense of itself, and its past. Wells Fargo is known for its archives, and they have put them to good use to help sell the longstanding trustworthiness of the company.

But all the goodwill was undone today with the launch of Abbot Downing, a trust company for high net worth folks who bank with Wells Fargo. The Abbot Downing name apparently comes from the carriage makers that made Wells Fargo's carriages oh so long ago. The two names have nothing to do with banking, nothing more than a marketing ploy. Perhaps there are worse things (such as one of those contrived names), and this name has a good chance of succeeding because Wells Fargo has so many customers that it can market to.

In a Marketwatch story, division president James Steiner said that Abbot Downing would do lots of things for its clients, not just investments. "The firm is trying to differentiate itself by offering broad services that cover both soft (doing family histories) and hard skills (creating very complex investment portfolios)."

But it missed something. Authenticity. Banks are different from soft drink companies and fashion lines. They are companies that you trust with your most important possession, your money.

The move is reminiscent of SunTrust, and its odd experiment with a brand called Alexander Key (See 2002 Inside Business story.) SunTrust in 2002 created the Alexander Key brand for its investment subsidiary. Like Abbot Downing, it was cooked up, apparently taken from an old president of the company, and in turn, the Alexander Key brand was cooked in a few years. Now SunTrust uses the Robertson Humphrey sub-brand for its investments, just as BB&T uses the Scott & Stringfellow brokerage name.

It reminds me of department stores that come up with WASPy sounding names for their store brands, in the hope that people will think that the brand is something old.

Abbot Downing will have to produce incredible results in its trust services department to compete with the other older, established banking brand names that have been trusted over generations.

Some of the biggest names include (with their year of founding) :

• 1853: U.S. Trust, the trust company founded in the 1850s that is now part of Bank of America.
• 1907: Bessemer Trust is an invented name, a nod to Bessemer, the steel innovator, but that name had some integrity as Henry Phipps was working with Andrew Carnegie's money when he established the firm at the turn of the century.
• 1899: Northern Trust founded in Chicago.
• 1903: M&T now owns Wilmington Trust, with roots in Delaware and T. Coleman duPont.
• 1931: Fiduciary Trust, now part of Franklin Templeton.
• 1935: The Whittier family of California establishes Whittier Trust (oil $$).

Surely the name tested well, though I am not sure how many ultra rich folks would switch to a bank name that was created to "sound" rich and "historic." Furthermore, you don't want the word "down" in any brand that has to do with investments. It has bad juju, kind of like when American Idol contestants sing songs about "going home."

This is but another annoyance for those of us who hate the constant churning of our bank names. Can we have a bank that is not a manufactured "brand" but derived from the names of bankers or places? Places like Philadelphia and Boston and New York and Chicago and Detroit and other centers of commerce of the 20th century?

Or maybe the company could go back into the old names that made up Wells Fargo, and dredge up something more interesting:

• Perhaps Crocker Bank and Trust? Connotes old California, as well as that Patty Hearst bit of history. An old nightclub is apparently using the Crocker name for a nightspot in L.A.
• Bank of North America, though probably difficult to use because it is so generic, was a predecessor company of Wells Fargo, and among the first federal banks in the U.S. The original location is still part of Wells Fargo's empire.
• A.G. Edwards and Wheat, predecessor investment companies of Wells Fargo and Wachovia, might be better names. Wheat is still magic in the South and A.G. Edwards is well-known nationally.

Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.

I have been thinking about a pot of red mums that sit by the walkway into my house. Different things happen to mums in different economies. When things are booming and we all have cash, we tend to get some new ones if the old ones aren't blooming. But in a time like now, and for most of the 20th century, most folks would "deadhead" the flowers on the plants, so you can get a few new blooms out of them. In a deadhead economy, people reduce consumption and fall back on both quality and price. In my case, the mums have finally re-bloomed, though not to the extent I would have wished.

It got me wondering; if many people like me are changing their buying patterns, how does this affect not only the immediate economy, but the next five to 10 years? And if and when the economy finally turns to prosperity, will sales recover, or are we creating another Depression-era generation that sees being a skinflint as the height of success and good citizenship? If that is so, success will come in different ways.

A few weeks ago, Capitol One CEO Richard Fairbank was quoted in The Wall Street Journal saying his company was seeing a "striking" lack of demand for credit. That made sense, because the night before, I had seen Fox Business News' Dave Ramsey celebrating the umpteenth caller who had quit buying new things and sold all his "stuff" online to pay down his credit cards. These sales weren't coming back. After suffering 25 to 29 percent interest rates that would have run afoul of usury laws just a generation ago, this caller was not about to go and charge a bunch more, well, crap. The same week, I heard a sermon from a priest at The Falls Church tell parishioners that he had bought a used car from someone who saw in a Craigslist ad that Dave Ramsey had "told him" it had to go. Just this week, I heard former IMF economist Simon Johnson speaking to Congress on deficits. He saw a "substantial slowdown" in the second half of the year. Yikes.

Technology magnifies this reduced consumption. My Apple iPod includes apps that were dozens of separate products only a few years ago. This one device has replaced a multiple products I have purchased before, including an Etch-a-Sketch, Boy Scout compass, Sony clock radio, Superscope AMFM Receiver, Garrard turntable, Sharp tape player, Panasonic Tape Recorder, Kodak Instamatic, Rolodex, Super 8 movie camera, TI calculator, Realistic Weatheradio, Rand McNally Maps, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, New York Times, AAA Triptik and Day Runner calendar. It has eliminated the jobs of travel agents, photo processors and dozens of different factory workers here and abroad. What happens when iPods will eliminate the need for fast food cashiers?

I mentioned this idea a bit as it related to Sears Holdings (SHLD). In August during the Sears Roebuck back to school season, vast amounts of square footage dwarfed the lean merchandise assortments. And last year during that scary fall retail season, I wrote about retailers who were surviving by doing repairs.

The question for me is what retailers, products and brands can thrive in this "deadhead" market where millions of unemployed and underemployed have more less money, more time on hand, and less need for things.

1. Creative genius: My daughter turns Starburst wrappers into purses and sells them on Etsy. She also gathers weekly at Sarasota's Darling Pottery Studio, where students of all ages each week fill their cabinet with gorgeous bowls and pots they pitched themselves. People have time; when you have time many knit, bake and make for amusement and little luxuries. Beneficiary? Craft stores like Michaels Stores and Jo-Ann Fabrics, local craft shows and little online retailers.
2. Your brand is an app. So your product is not needed any more? Turn it into an app. A Radio Shack (RSH) Realistic Weatheradio app? An AAA Triptik app?
3. Cheap, really cheap. Stuff that's either really extreme value (Dollar Tree (DLTR), Supervalu's Sav-a-lot (SVU), or has real quality combined with remarkable price points, where Walmart (WMT) is going.
4. Extreme value, or perceived value. Two weeks ago, I went to our local VW dealer for a car show, and it was packed. Volkswagen is increasing its market share, opening a new Tennessee factory and hoping to double sales volume in the next year. Local, luxury chocolate shops in Sarasota seem to be doing well. That may be a function of the uptick in the Dow, though value priced luxury can do well no-growth economies.
5. Hacking and remaking. Trendwatcher website Springwise last week featured Sugru, a silicon putty that you can use to "hack" and remake old items to suit, including changing the shape and making handles easier to use. You can even mould it into new things.
6. Repair, not replace: I am not alone in talking about this issue; the New York new ideas consultancy PSFK has written about the idea, citing the Repair Manifesto of Platform 21. The repair manifesto's main idea is that fixing stuff can be made interesting if it is more creative, and fixing things is the most green friendly thing you can do. The hipster art group Fixer's Collective gathers in Brooklyn to repair stuff as an art form. As much as these all might seem like niche market ideas, these trends percolate down to the mass market. Our local Florida Tops sewing machine and vacuum chain is pushing deals on Dyson and Electrolux, as well as repairs.
7. Shades of Havana, '59: My uncle, an ob-gyn and car enthusiast, bought a rebuilt Dodge Neon for his college-age daughter from a North Carolina fellow who rebuilds them, with interchangeable parts from other Neons. It is the perfect solution for a cheap, cheerful college runabout. The twentysomething guys on my street spend their entire free time rebuilding and fixing trucks. All of their extra time.
8. Quality brands win: Tiffany & Co. (TIF) has survived every downturn. They are luxury, but they know how to sell items with low price points to keep every income group in their stores.
9. Small size, high markup: Sanrio's Hello Kitty has trained kids on the idea that small, well produced items can be sold for high markup. Consumers who have less will still want quality, even children. You can have high markup in a slow economy by making everyday items that have high perceived value. My daughter's SIGG water bottle that she takes to kindergarten is made in Switzerland (around $17!), and is of extreme high quality. It lasts. She won't need one for another few years.
10. Local is good. Big article this month March's The Atlantic on how Walmart "The Great Grocery Smackdown" is now pushing local produce at its stores, and will be searching out nearby truck farms to supply its stores.

The Digest's durability over the years was because it was all paid for. Its headquarters was paid for. Its debt was nil. And so during a downturn, of which there were many during its long history, it could survive.

The story of the breakup of Reader's Digest is a sad tale, detailed in Peter Canning's excellent biography of founders Dewitt and Lila Wallace. The undoing begins with the literal suffering of Dewitt and Lila Wallace during their last days at High Winds, their estate. In senility, Lila Wallace's staff was taken away one-by-one, and she wore ragged nightgowns. Dewitt Wallace literally died with untreated cancer, his guts spilling out at home. When she died, Lila Wallace's ashes were spread over her Rose Garden. She felt secure about this; before she died she had seen to it that High Winds would be a part of Reader's Digest permanently, and used as a conference and retreat center. But the estate was sold in 1985; her Rose Garden dug up for new owner, investor Nelson Peltz.

I mention all of this because it shows how far the company strayed from its founders, not only in its editorial mission, but it its whole respect for the Wallace legacy. Like Walt Disney, the BRAND was the Wallaces. To keep the idea alive, you need to have a healthy respect for the founders and their creation. Certainly, you can change things, but whatever you do has to come out of a healthy respect for the franchise. That was far from the case in Pleasantville.

A few weeks ago, and totally oblivious to bankruptcy issues, I wrote on how the early Reader's Digest was literally the first "WEB 2.0" media product, with elements of blogs, HuffingtonPost and Drudge Report. Having started a state magazine at the height of the last recession, I thought that the company during this recession is perfectly positioned for today, if it could only understand what made it great.

I don't think it understands its strengths.

A few thoughts on what surviving investors like J.P. Morgan Chase (JPM), Bank of America's Merrill Lynch (BOA), GE' GE Capital (GE) Eaton Vance Investment Managers, Regiment Capital Advisors LP and Davidson Kempner Capital Management LLC, need to do, here on out.

1. Focus on its data: Reader's Digest has a powerful subscription database; over eight million. It needs to use that data to sell other one-off products.
2. Be aggressive: Keep launching new magazines and web portals. Just because they are doing it now, doesn't mean it isn't the right formula.
3. Stop the focus on costs. Publishing has overhead; you have to grow revenue. If you cut the overhead, you cut the brains that make the product. You can't make cars without a factory, and you can't publish magazines and websites without editorial and sales staff.
4. Buy regional and niche titles: A magazine no longer stands on its own. A magazine is a front-piece to a web portal and a web brand. The Digest has the scale to build each of them into a franchise. I made a quick list off the top of my head as to some future ones; there are plenty. It's about scale.
5. Keep going with the magazine: In recent editions, editor Peggy Northrop has begun to take the magazine back to its hopeful state. They need to make sure they stay true to the original vision.
6. Launch a true web edition: The web is packed with great things; a TRUE Reader's Digest of the web would be a powerful web franchise.
7. Think about putting the index on the cover again. There is a reason why it worked; it was part of the brand. Remember the Digest had an index on the cover all during the era of Life and Look. In an overloaded era of graphics, reading and type becomes restful.
8. Honor the Wallaces. There is some bad juju when you sell off the family silver and the Rose Garden where your founder is buried, against her wishes. Reader's Digest needs to do some things to mend those mistakes, or they will keep making them again and again.

Sort of.

Frankly, that's a bit of a scary headline for us folks who like brand names and see the balance sheet value in them. But it is certainly worrisome that we found a bag of Wheat Thins without Nabisco in the corner. Is Kraft (NYSE: KFT) demoting the Nabisco brand, just like they ditched the storied and valuable General Foods brand? The Nabisco-less Wheat Thins hit the shelves about the same time Kraft introduced a new line of generic Nabisco Classics.

The missing Nabisco left-corner triangle means one thing. If there is no Nabisco in the corner, there is no quality in the cracker. Certainly, it's an attractive package, and the Wheat Thins were tasty as always, but we won't be buying them again unless we have the red Nabisco symbol in the corner. We don't trust Wheat Thins without Nabisco red, and neither should any other readers. Frankly, Kraft's stock has been stuck in a rut since 2002, and we don't think ditching Nabisco will help.

There could be any number of reasons why they are separating Nabisco from Wheat Thins, including it being a trial. But the Nabisco brand is valuable, as we pointed out in a previous story, Nabisco Brand Advice Corner. Our guesses:

1. To see how Wheat Thins sell without the red Nabisco label. If they sell O.K., then Kraft could value the Wheat Thins brand as a separate line or brand from Nabisco. Our response: This is an interesting trial of an idea, a trial balloon, but please put the Nabisco back, thank you. And frankly, the bag packaging looks nice, so there is no reason why it wouldn't sell well. But the red Nabisco logo has nothing to do with it.
2. Because they think Nabisco is fuddy duddy. If that's the case, and somehow packaging tests better without it, you all have made the brand fuddy duddy and you need to fix it. There is nothing fuddy about Nabisco; it's like Coca-Cola. Nabisco is classic. Nabisco is America. Nabisco is the National Biscuit Company, thank you, and I will have no other.
3. Because they might turn Nabisco into a brand itself, and launch new products. That would be odd. As odd as Kraft Mac and Cheese branded crackers, btw. But they are doing it; Kraft just turned Nabisco into a classics line, with decent generic cookies iced and animal cookies sold under the brand Nabisco Classics. This is fine, but it is a downgrade, and evidence they are demoting Nabisco.
4. Because they are going to spin off either Nabisco or Wheat Thins, and need to separate the two brands.
5. Because a graphic designer got a bee up his you-know-what, and thought his pretty little design was too great to be cluttered up with a funny red symbol in the corner. They thought no one would notice.

So here's the deal Kraft. If I am going to trust a cracker and a cookie from your company, I need a Nabisco label on it. Otherwise, it's Kellogg's Keebler and Sunshine (NYSE: K), Campbell's Pepperidge Farm (NYSE: CPB) or a store brand. You hear! And by the way, Kellogg's, a company with a more stable stock performance, is making Sunshine Hydrox again. So if you take the Nabisco off the Oreos too, we'll have to switch there, too.

Do not drop the Nabisco corner.

Disclosure: No positions. Just an Oreo and Chips Ahoy fan.