Today is a big day for the Chitika family: we’re making a huge change to our branding by completely changing the name of our company. No longer will we have awkward conversations with potential partners like “I really like what Chittyville does,” or “hey, could I buy a banana from you guys?” “Everyone thinks our name has something to do with bananas,” says our co-founder and CEO Venkat Kolluri. “Well, it doesn’t. The word ‘Chitika’ means ‘in a snap’ in Telugu.”
In order to ease the confusion, from now on Chitika will be known as ‘Aritipandu’, another Telugu word, but one that should create less confusion over our brand. “Now, people won’t be confused over whether or not we sell bananas,” says Kolluri. “Aritipandu pretty much says it all.” For those of you who don’t speak Telugu, ‘Aritipandu’ translates to banana. Given how successful our Banana Party was at AdTech Chicago in 2007, we feel we’re on to something here.