Several factors are at play here. First, big British former monopolies are always news, even when they are merely tweaking their logo.
Everyone remembers the multicultural British Airways tailfins that so offended Lady Thatcher. You don't want to risk that kind of attention on your watch.
Fortunately, the new look for British Gas is more of an update than a redesign. The old flame now looks like a ribbon, or, perhaps, a leaf.
As consumers, we like our home-grown corporations to be - and look - contemporary and progressive, but we don't want to pay for it. We are already suspicious that energy brands may care more about their shareholders than their customers.
Memories of the recent Indian Summer will soon fade, and the papers will inevitably start running stories about how 'eat or heat' pensioners are cursing their energy bills.
To add to these PR sore-points, British Gas is part of a controversial industry. The extraction of fossil fuels is necessarily a dirty business, made dirtier by much-publicised environmental disasters. British Gas itself may be squeaky clean, but it is still tarred with the same brush as some of its peers.
Fuel is not a discretionary purchase. We all need it and, therefore, once we have chosen our supplier, we feel completely at its mercy.
In this context, rebranding exercises can look frivolous, if not downright irresponsible. British Gas is right to be highly sensitive to the concerns of its consumers.
Noelle.McElhatton@haymarket.com