Theirs actually made a bit more sense. They didn't try to actually get people to use the new name, because it was a business restructure, not a "brand" restructure.

For business management purposes, it didn't make sense for a search engine company to do things like "own a car company". So they split the business units up and made things a little more organized. They ran into some name issues because the most recognizable face of the company is so strongly associated with search, and they didn't want to mess with that, so they made a new name for the top.

Companies do stuff like that all the time, but it usually doesn't raise to public attention because it doesn't happen to major brands, or hit the top level of the business.

They still label all their stuff Google, and their stock ticker is still googl.