« Links du Jour 08-27-06 | Main | Branding: Strategic Name Development Goes Hollywood »

August 28, 2006

Links Du Jour 8-28-06

Heineken Wages Fierce Battle vs. New Rival – Itself - Looks like the new Heineken Premium Light brand is doing better than expected, but at the cost of its sister brand, Amstel Light.

I was very pleased to see the Heineken Premium Light brand name introduced (the company’s first line extension in 133 years, according to Adblabber!), but they may have misjudged their target market as being predominately female.

Amstel Light may be a guys’ beer brand, but so is Heineken. And I think sponsoring the US Open was clearly a move to help the brand appeal to men.

Oprah's Favorite Burger? - It's served at an eatery called The Counter, which is now looking at franchising thanks to her thumbs up. The problem is, of course, that the unique, authenticity of the brand name is at risk here - its very coolness is at stake, as it goes from being a neighborhood eatery to a chain.

I wrote about what it takes to build a cool brand last Thursday, August 24th, and two of the comments to that post, from Rajan Sodhi, and Tate Linden, respectively, pointed out that coolness is both hard to define and ephemeral.

Google Makes Its Move: Office 2.0 - Google appears to be taking on Microsoft Office, but they sure are doing it with an odd product name: Google Apps for Your Domain. Love Office or hate it, it is a very easy name to remember.

The blog post mentions an InformationWeek article that explains Google's new move, and also lists of Office wannabes from yesteryear whose brand names are ready for the nostalgia bin (WordPerfect, Lotus Symphony and StarOffice.)

Why I Shouldn't Have Named My iPod "Unicorn Princess" - You can go to iPodnames.com and register the name of your iPod for a dollar. This is an interesting way for consumers to create their own brand name, and its a naming service that utilizes the interest consumers have in product personalization. Plus, it has the added benefit of enhancing the consumer's emotional connection with the iPod brand.

Technorati Tags: Heineken Premium Light, Amstel Light, Line Extension, Oprah Winfrey, The Counter Burger, Google Apps for Your Domain, iPod Names

Posted by William Lozito at August 28, 2006 9:38 AM
Posted to Beverages | Brand Naming | Branding | Consumer Electronics | Food | Marketing | Product Naming | Technology

Bookmark this del.icio.us Digg Furl ma.gnolia Yahoo MyWeb

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.namedevelopment.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/3442