What do Tesco and Miramax have in common?

I was talking to some smart folks yesterday who used to work at Dunnhumby on the enormous Tesco CRM account. We were chatting about Tesco and I asked them if Tesco stood for anything. I assumed it was would the "something"-Company and was interested what the "something" was. Apparently not. According to them the company was named after Jack Cohen's mum, Tessa.

Reminded me of a story that I heard once about the Weinstein brothers, Bob and Harvey. They named their movie company Miramax after Miriam and Max, their mum and dad. Apparently when the company was in deep financial trouble and the rumour was that they were about to sell, the one thing that they cared about was keeping the Miramax name under their control.

The power of parents.

(BTW, Yahoo Answers disputes the fact that Tesco was named after a Tessa Cohen, but until someone tells me otherwise I am believing it -  it makes for a much nicer story)

Comments

[Andy]

Sorry to ruin the romantic story about the TES of TESCO coming from Jack Cohen's mother or wife's name, but in reality it was his tea-supplier!

According to the Tesco website:
1924 – The first own-brand product sold by Jack was Tesco Tea – before the company was called Tesco. The name comes from the initials of TE Stockwell, who was a partner in the firm of tea suppliers, and CO from Jack’s surname.
http://www.tescocorporate.com/page.aspx?pointerid=D01B1F9C28E346B38DA0479EF0BE8FC3

I still prefer the other story tho.

[Amelia]

So sad. I really wanted to believe that Tessa Cohen existed. In my mind I was starting to develop a whole new ad campaign to try and humanize Tescos. But no...

[Paul Alexander]

Well, I'm going to confirm (or not) the true heritage tomorrow if I get a chance to log in at some point whilst travelling... we're having dinner with Jack's grandson tonight... if he doesn't know the name of his granny!

[Amelia]

Paul - dying to know the Tesco truth!!!

[Paul Alexander]

OK, here it is. Got my 60 minute voucher for wireless access in the lounge so...

[Paul Alexander]

The Tea supplier story is true!

Jack Cohen was told by his accountant that Cohen wasn't a good name for the store so he used the initials for the tea supplier he had as a partner (who dropped out of being involved in the business after a few years), and added them to the CO to create TESCO. After a period of time, John also confirmed that the 'romantic' story which emerged was that it was a merger of his grandmother's name with her last name Tess and Co.

In reality John's grandmother was called Cissy so it would have been Cisco rather than Tesco!

Either way, it sounds like lots of money and good businesses to me...

Mystery solved. A romantic at heart I'm plumping for the Tess story... so much more interesting than the tea supplier one... and probably 99% of the reason why I'll never be a journalist for the beeb.

[Amelia]

very funny - thank you

Ax

[Stefan Stroe]

Cool, I didn't know about it, although I studied this gigantic business's strategy quite a lot.