Opinion: Beale on ... Wanadoo.

There you are, breaking new ground, ploughing a furrow, fighting the protected monoliths (BT), establishing yourself as the country's biggest ISP with an impressive 2.6 million punters popping through your portal and then the bloody French tell you to change your name. Whether you Wanadoo it or not. It's a bit of a bugger, really, because Freeserve was doing so nicely. Neat positioning, some lovely, fresh advertising and the sort of sensibly frugal moniker guaranteed to appeal to the cheap-skate Brits.

Of course, they threw a party. Martin Freeman turned up, leaving any remaining vestiges of cool with the name-checker on the door. There was Nick Moran, some ex-EastEnder, some current EastEnder. Someone from Casualty.

Apparently, the Kings Cross Scala rocked.

And then came the advertising. Now I've always had a soft spot for Freeserve's advertising. Right from the early days of the nudy campers It's always managed to be cheeky, quirky and yet rather comfortingly prim. And it stood out from its internet brethren back in the glory days when half the start-up costs would go on ads about sand or skateboarders. And the other half on big offices and fast cars. Leaving 50 quid in the cookie jar for the business plan.

Right from the off Freeserve has been a solid business, a beacon brand in a sea of uncalled-for services, blinding graphics and dead-end links.

Then it got bought by France Telecom and, quite sensibly, is being renamed to match its sister continental brand. The trick is to keep all that's best about the Freeserve heritage while getting us all excited about the super new add-ons that come with the new name.

Oh, it's early days but, since the new M&C Saatchi advertising will be key to driving home the new name and getting us all panting to find out more, so far they've got off to a slow start. In the run-up to the rebrand there's been some nice TV, press and poster work showing strung-out ...