September 2007 Archives: Name Wire: The Product Naming Blog

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September 28, 2007

World Cup 2010 Trademark Violations Already a Brand Naming Nightmare

It's three years before the World Cup in South Africa but people are already illegally making money from the 2010 World Cup logo.

FIFA has just set guidelines to help prevent fraudulent use of the logo, which some people have likened to a "frog jumping over a pork chop" and at least one blogger has been castigated for featuring a "bicycle kick," a move that is actually "whistled for a foul."

It looks like the date "2010" is set to be claimed by FIFA, much to the irritation of some South Africans. But it should be noted that the FIFA restrictions only apply to usage of words "in combination with football imagery or if it is an attempt to create an association with the 2010 World Cup, FIFA or the 2010 World Cup Organizing Committee South Africa."

To that end, there are a range of logos and marks that are protected:

World Cup
South Africa World Cup
2010
Twenty Ten
World Cup South Africa
The names of virtually every South African city followed by 2010

It is a logical move on FIFA's part but it will be very hard indeed to enforce: what if a clothing maker creates a t-shirt with the words Cape Town with the World Cup colors?

This is an excellent example of how difficult it is to protect a brand name. If the rip off products are appearing already, one wonders what will be happening two years from now.

Technorati Tags: FIFA, World Cup, Football World Cup 2010,Trademarks

September 27, 2007

Congruent Brand Naming and the Business Card

I recently was given a business card from a representative of a very well-known company. I was surprised to see that it was different from one of his co-workers business cards. This seems to be a common problem, where business cards (and stationery) are not consistent in providing a unified image to the marketplace.

Neatly designed marketing materials are indeed not the brand, but they are the means through which customers actually interact with your brand name. This week Allen Stern asked the simple question: what goes on a business card aside from your own name? How does your company name attach itself to Facebook, for instance, or does it find life in SecondLife?

Edith Yeung has a great blog entitled "12 Reasons Why People Want to Keep Your Business Card." There's even a Flickr group devoted to interesting business cards.

A company called InBrand, which is based in the UK but is on its way to the USA, actually helps clients manage all the representations of their brand name in house, ensuring that every piece of marketing material matches.

Sounds like a good idea: a naming consultant can create the best product naming and brand naming nomenclature, but if it isn't represented properly to the marketplace, what's the point?

Technorati Tags: FaceBook, Flickr, Business Cards

Posted by William Lozito at 11:32 AM

Posted to Brand Naming | Marketing | Product Naming
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September 26, 2007

Nike's Air Native N7 Brand Naming for Native Americans

Nike's new Air Native N7 is the new sneaker brand name designed especially for Native Americans. This is the first time Nike has designed a shoe for a specific race or ethnicity. With a "culturally specific look" and a wider, higher design, it is meant to cater to the specific foot needs of Native Americans. The design sounds pretty cool: there are feathers inside and stars on the sole to represent the night sky. These are referred to as "heritage callouts," and are accompanied by "sunrise to sunset to sunrise patterns on the tongue and heel of the shoe."

The N7 name is a direct reference to the "seventh generation theory" which some tribes ascribe to, looking three generations behind them for wisdom and three generations ahead of them for legacy.

While alphanumeric naming is nothing new, particularly in the auto industry, this product reminds me of Wrigley's "5" gum brand, which depends heavily on the associations derived from the number itself (in this case the 5 senses), unlike the Milky Way 2 to Go bar.

I also must say that Nike has made a good move by addressing the needs of a small, niche market like that presented by Native Americans. It shows a kinder, gentler side of the company and underlines the interesting "core" of the brand name: "If you have a body you are an athlete."

Technorati Tags: Nike, Air Native N7, Milky Way, Athletic Shoes

QVC’s New Branding Scheme is Deja Q All Over Again

QVC's first marketing campaign in 21 years aims at owning the letter Q, at least in the minds of the public.

As our "Brought to You by the Letter Q" post last December shows, they're a bit late off the mark. "Q" might be a rare letter in the English language (and even rarer in most Germanic languages), but its unusual nature makes it popular with marketers.

Epson The US trademark database reveals 1971 records with the letter "Q" on its own, in every conceivable category, from clothing and consumer goods to piezoelectric crystals to food products. Browsing through the list reveals an impressive array of different ways to represent the letter "Q," from the swirling yin-yang of Quick Sports to the tilted square registered by Epson.

QuickSports Members of the QVC online community seem underwhelmed by the move to incorporate "Q" into everything the company does (from iQdoU to "merci beau Q"): If we enable their ownership of the 17th letter of the alphabet, like if we let them call this the online Qmunity, and we call the gift cards Qpons, and we think everything they do with rebranding is Qute, do you think they'll restore the boards Quickly and Quell the Qmplaints?

Actually, the popular Broadway show "Avenue Q" already has a Q-mmunity on their website. Is this the Q for the lawyers to step in?

Technorati Tags: QVC, Linguistics, Quick Sports, Epson

September 25, 2007

Product Naming: Would You Buy a Himmer?

Alphabet Soup Strategic Name Development conducted proprietary consonant research that found certain consonants have meaningful association in consumers' minds.

For example, B and C were seen as less complex (think Bounty and Cheerios), while X was considered innovative and L and V were rated more feminine.

Similarly, researchers at the University of Texas at San Antonio recently found that vowel sounds are linked to certain adjectives, and can influence the way people see a product based on its name.

For instance, front vowel sounds (like the "i" in mill) are associated with ideas like small, fast, sharp, light, hard and angular. Back vowel sounds (think "a" in mall) connote adjectives such as large, slow, dull, heavy, soft and round.

In this study, 70% of respondents chose a name with a back vowel for the SUV product name, while 66% selected a sharper sounding front vowel name for the knife product name.

I had the opportunity to weigh in on the ability of a product name's sound to make or break the product.

Technorati Tags: Vowels, Consonants, Bounty, Cheerios, Product Naming

French Laundry Soon To Be Frozen Food Brand Name: C'est Bon

The French Laundry in Yountville, California (Napa Valley to the rest of us) is arguably the best restaurant in the United States, and what a catchy name.

ChefThomasKeller Chef Thomas Keller has become a brand name unto himself... the only restaurateur who has a three star Michelin rating for two restaurants.

He even lent his name (and expertise) to the new Disney film "Ratatouille." Now, according to Bloomberg, "He wants to open an inn, butcher shop and burger joint. His frozen-food line should soon hit retail shelves."

Is this the beginning of the end? When chefs spread their name too thin, it usually means they are cashing in and on the way out. Or, as Michael Bauer, executive food and wine editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, puts it, "Once you get into frozen food and pizzas, your fine dining brand gets a little fuzzed out."

Well, the French Laundry name is currently being used by other restaurants not affiliated with Keller. And already it seems that his name draws people to his affiliated eateries, such as Ad Hoc.

My feeling is that Keller's brand name and that of and the French Laundry name will continue to go forth and multiply so long as that flagship restaurant in Yountville keeps getting rave reviews. One massively popular restaurant and cookbook can make a brand name out of a chef.

I frankly expect this kind of success to become the template for other food brand names. Seems to me that the name Nobu has driven incredible extension using the brand name. Why not the name of America's greatest chef?

Technorati Tags: Restaurant, Nobu, FrenchLaundry, AdHoc, Thomas Keller, Ratatouille, Disney.

September 24, 2007

Seven Deadly Sins of Company Naming Changes

We at Strategic Name Development introduce to you the Seven Deadly Sins of Company Naming Changes, inspired by our proprietary Company Naming Changes research. We've covered major trends and pulled out the Greatest Hits, and we'd like to wrap up this undertaking with a few words of advice for what not to do.

Pride is excessive belief in one's ideas about what the company should be named to the exclusion of all common sense and all commoners. The 2002 British Postal Service's prideful name change to Consignia was met with a considerable amount of prejudice.

Envy is the desire for the status, popularity, or profitability that other brand names currently command. The most obvious manifestation of envy is name copying.

ApricotApple Think Apricot Computers, who apparently couldn't resist eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil (which is ironically often represented by an apple tree).

Gluttony is the desire for the name to consume more than that which it requires. This often happens when a company changes its name to reflect a broader offering, but then goes too far and swallows more than it can possibly chew.

Take Cingular Wireless gulping down AT&T Wireless in October 2004, bringing the company under the Cingular name. Then in March 2006 AT&T (owned 60% of Cingular at the time) wanted a piece and ate BellSouth (owned 40% of Cingular at the time) for full control of Cingular. In May 2006 the new AT&T made plans to ditch the Cingular Wireless name in place of the original AT&T Wireless name by 2007. For a visual of this brand digestion cycle, check out Steven Colbert's spoof.

Lust is an inordinate craving for the love of a name at all costs. Lust is being seduced by and falling in love with a new company name before knowing if it's legally available. Lust often leads to brand adultery - or in the case of Phillip Morris, brand "Adultria."

Anger is manifested in the company name who spurns the positive and opts instead for violence, fear and fury.

French Connection rebranded their fashion clothing to "fcuk" in 1997 to capitalize on this concept, plucking the shorthand from faxes between French Connection Hong Kong (FCHK) and French Connection United Kingdom (FCUK). The new name, bearing striking resemblance to "the F-word," resulted in an 81% increase in profits in 1997... Not to mention a flourish of complaints and press coverage.

Greed is the excessive desire for material wealth or power that goes along with a name. Greed means he who has the most money gets his name on the bottle. In the case of GlaxoSmithKline, Wellcome was no longer welcome.

Sloth is the disinclination to do your linguistic homework before introducing a name. One company decided on its new moniker, Enteron, before bothering to check the meaning in Webster's dictionary: intestine or alimentary canal.

Technorati Tags: AT&T, Cingular, Name Change, GlaxoSmithKline,FCUK,Apple, Philip Morris, Enron,Enteron

Posted by William Lozito at 9:44 AM

Posted to Brand Naming | Company Naming | Naming | Product Naming
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September 21, 2007

Intel Struggles in Naming New Products, Nixes New Product Naming Strategy

I have followed Intel's increasingly confusing brand naming strategy for some time and was distressed to see that their new product naming strategy has been put on hold because it "did not achieve its goal to simplify brand names and even worsened the situation in the CPU realm."

There seem to have been market protests over their naming convention changes although a few name changes will occur, not least the Intel Viiv products will be called Core 2 Viiv and Intel vPro will become Core vPro.

This news comes on the heels of news that Intel's naming woes have helped cause confusion in the Mac market... the latest Macs have been called Santa Rosa by many misguided experts who use the name to differentiate these new, sleeker Macs from their immediate predecessors.

Application of the name Santa Rosa to these machines, which "are not part of the platform" according to TidBITS, is a symptom of how Intel's nomenclature has grown so complex that even computer followers are confused.

Simon Leeman also accuses Apple of being a little negligent in the naming field: after all, the new Mac really doesn't have a new name... Apple calls it, clunkily, Mid 2007.

Intel is one of the few chipmakers that enjoys brand name recognition among the average computer user and I sympathize with their struggles.

They have a daunting challenge... differentiating an increasingly complex and many branched product line while at the same time retaining brand equity and partnering with the iconic Apple brand.

I will be watching how things develop with interest.

Technorati Tags: Intel, Intel Viiv, Core 2 Viiv, Intel vPro, Core vPro, Mac, Santa Rosa.

September 20, 2007

Courtney Love and SoupMan Learn Some Brand Naming Basics the Hard Way

There are a few mistakes that you really do not want to make in the world of brand naming.

The first is not to insult anyone, like say, how Beaner's Coffee was inadvertently doing with Hispanics until it changed its name to Biggby Coffee earlier this week.

The second is, if your name is Courtney Love, you might want to avoid naming a perfume after yourself simply because we do not want to smell like somebody whose band is called Hole. The only person who we're even less likely to buy perfume from is Marilyn Manson, whose perfume brand naming strategy, Smells Like Children, might be the worst ever.

You also might discover that any association with Nazis is bad, even if Jerry Seinfeld himself creates it as a joke, as is the case with the man who inspired the Seinfeld character dubbed the Soup Nazi. His SoupMan stores seem to have fallen on hard times, despite the fact that he has forbidden his staff to mention Nazis or Seinfeld or "no soup for you" on the job.

People just don't want to buy perfume from washed up rockers who don't bathe, they don't want to buy coffee that is offensive to any group, and they do not want to buy anything from Nazis of any description.

No matter how retro or funny or off-beat the associations are, a bad association is a bad association.

Technorati Tags: Courtney Love, Beaner's Coffee, SoupMan, Brand Naming.

September 19, 2007

Company Naming Changes in India

If China is the world's factory, then India is the world's back room.

But both countries are developing their own brands. Companies in both India and China are gaining in prominence and stature and someday, in the not too distant future, China will be the world's second largest economy, closely followed by India, or the other way around.

In India, there's Tata Steel, who might be buying Ford Motor Co.'s Jaguar and Land Rover units for auto parts, and the famous high tech companies such as Infosys and Wipro Technologies.

As a demonstration of India's evolving economy, more and more companies are implementing company naming changes.

Arati Menon Carroll has written a very interesting article on the subject in a recent edition of the Business Standard, India's leading newspaper.

Our proprietary Company Naming Changes research reveal that there are 1,409 company naming changes in the US in 2006. Again, this phenomenon is becoming more common in India as its economy continues to develop.

I had the privilege of being interviewed for the Business Standard article.

Technorati Tags: Business Standard, Tata Steel, Ford, Jaguar, Land Rover, Arati Menon Carroll, Company Naming Changes.

September 18, 2007

Reventon Brand Name a Blowout

Lamborghini has just introduced a $1.6 million car, and named it after a bull.

While bulls are symbols of power, speed, and virility, and the bull Reventón was particularly aggressive, the name Reventón doesn't have anywhere near enough sex appeal to match the car itself.

Reventón is Spanish for burst, which is fine if you think of a burst of power, but the word is also used to mean a blowout, as in a flat tire. It also means outburst, as in an emotional display.

Those connotations would have been lost on non-Spanish-speaking auto-fanciers before the Internet.

Now bloggers have the power to spread naming gaffes around the world in mere minutes, and the Reventón is likely to go down in history as second only to the Nova in awkward auto naming experiments. And, indeed, if you have a reventón, your car will no va.

Even without that problem, however, the name just sounds too clumsy. It doesn't have the smooth, rolling power of, say, Lamborghini. Even removing the n from the end of the word would give it a better sound, though for a car like this, a one-syllable name that whips past you at high speed might be more appropriate.

Too often, we buy products that don't live up to their names. In Lamborghini's case, the name doesn't live up to the product.

Technorati Tags: Lamborghini, Reventon, Product Naming, Brand Naming.

September 17, 2007

Update: The Influence of China on Brand Perception

As I mentioned in my blog post last Friday, I am sharing more findings from our proprietary Influence of China on Brand Perceptions research.

As a quick reminder, the sample size is 503 consumers that were balanced by gender, age, household income and census region. (See charts below.)

We gave consumers a choice of buying a product made in India or made in China for 25 product categories.

Generally speaking, for those product categories that a consumer would wear, consume, or use on their body, consumers were most likely to prefer a product made in India versus China.
When consumers were given the choice of purchasing a product that was made in India or made in China, in 21 of 25 product categories the consumer selected India.
What makes this finding all the more interesting is that in India, one of their major fears is that one day they will wake up and realize that most of the products they purchase in India are made in China.
Interestingly, in only one product category, Flat Panel TVs, there was a preference for products made in China.

Click thumbnails for larger images.

Look for more research findings on brands made in China in the next couple of days.

Technorati Tags: Brandweek, Strategic Name Development, China, India, Manufacturing, Survey

Posted by William Lozito at 9:34 AM

Posted to Branding
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September 14, 2007

The Influence of China on Brand Perceptions

It's no surprise to anyone reading this post that China has been in the news the last few months regarding numerous product recalls for pet food, prescription drugs and toys.

This prompted us to conduct primary research among 503 consumers in the US. The sample was balanced by gender, age, household income and census region.

This week, some of the findings of our study were the subject of a cover story of Brandweek.

Next week, we plan to publish more of our proprietary research findings on the influence of China on brand perceptions.

Technorati Tags: Brandweek, Strategic Name Development.

September 13, 2007

Netscape Has a Propelling New Brand Name

A few days ago I wrote about the danger that the Netscape brand name seemed to be in, not least because its identity as a social news portal has been dropped and will be moved to a new site which has yet to be named.

Well, the name is out and its a good one: Propeller.

As one Netscape blogger points out, "to propel means to motivate, actuate, move, prompt, incite, impel, or to give incentive for action and cause to move forward with force."

OK, I'll accept that, not least because they will be "propelling" news to us.

Of course, we would expect Netscape to spin the Propeller (a blog title that has been used many times in relation to the new brand naming) but the future of the brand is still in doubt, according to Tim Faulkner.

This news comes right on the heels of Motorola's announcement to launch a content portal with the name Comprehensive Solutions Catalog which James Quintana Pearce hopes "is a working title and not the planned brand name."

Technorati Tags: Netscape, Propeller, Muhammad Saleem, James Quintana Pearce, Product Naming, Brand Naming.

September 12, 2007

The Biko Brand Name Alive and Well in South Africa

South Africa marked the 30th anniversary of freedom fighter Steve Biko's death yesterday, who was killed during interrogation at the hands of the apartheid police.

Steve Biko is one of the great "might have beens" of history, and because he died in such a tragic manner and wrote so eloquently against the apartheid system, he is somewhat of a political martyr in South Africa... and now a fashion icon and indeed a brand name.

Wearing his image is now something between a fashion statement and a political statement. The commercialization of the Biko name, however, has caused much soul searching on the part of his admirers.

This reminds me of the same kind of agonizing over the use of the image and name of Che Guevara, another resistance fighter who died an untimely death and leaves a difficult legacy behind him.

It seems to me that people who buy images of Che or Biko are often not wholly aware of either figure's politics.

Their images might have become disassociated with historical reality and taken lives of their own, much as the glamorous preppy life of Ralph Lauren has done.

Indeed, Ralph Lauren, ironically, is another person who will be remembered more for the myth he created about the inspirational polo playing lifestyle than the reality of Ralph Lifschitz (Lauren's real name) from the Bronx.

The Lauren brand name, now 40 years old, is the window through which we remember the man. Perhaps he prefers it that way.

But I do think that it is worth noting that the romance of fashion may do a better job at preserving the memories of these men than the nuances of history.

Technorati Tags: Steve Biko, Che Guevara, Ralph Lauren, Brand Naming, Product Naming.

September 11, 2007

New Indiana Jones Movie Has a Name, Finally

Shia LaBeouf's announcement at the MTV Music Video Awards that the name of the new Indiana Jones movie will be Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull immediately made me think of artist Damien Hirst's diamond skull that sold for $100 million two weeks ago.

The title of that piece is For the Love of God, named after his mother's exclamation, "For the love of God, what are you going to do next?"

Some movie fans were less than impressed with the new movie name but I think it sounds pretty interesting.

Slashfilm has the logo up and had already posted the six possible names, with the original working title of the project being Indiana Jones and the City of the Gods.

Chris Thilk likes the title but is afraid that it's "going to take up a lot of poster space and will be hard to fit easily on toy packaging."

He also amusingly notes that "If there were still such a thing as movie theater marquees it would get chopped to hell."

Technorati Tags: Shia LaBeouf, Indiana Jones, Damien Hirst, Slashfilm, Chris, Uniqlo, Volkswagen, Isaac Mizrahi, Karl Lagerfeld, Very Wang.

September 10, 2007

Fashion Brand Name Collaborations Match the Boutique with the Big Box

Yesterday The New York Times published an excellent article by Eric Wilson entitled The Big Brand Theory, that talked about the new alliances between high-end fashion names and major retailers like Target and Gap.

Lutz & Patmos very recently teamed up with Japanese giant Uniqlo
The same boutique fashion brand name has also teamed with car giant Volkswagen to create a line of accessories for the new Eos
Isaac Mizrahi has lent his name to Target in a line of cheap and very fashionable clothes that are designed to make middle America more fashionable
More collaborations are to come with Gap teaming up with fashion trio Thaoon, Rodarte and Doo to bring a hint of elegance to its everyman clothing line

In August, Vera Wang announced she will create an exclusive brand for Kohl's called Very Vera by Vera Wang. The line will include sportswear, intimate apparel, handbags, leather accessories, jewelry, footwear, linens and towels.

I think this is the way forward for high-end fashion brand names, not least because nowadays knock-offs of runway styles are getting into low-end stores faster than the originals thanks to Internet technology and a new, very savvy breed of fashion entrepreneur.

Carefully matching big names with boutique names is the way, I think, to beat the copycats at their own game, and to lift the general quality of fashion in the malls.

It seems that up and coming brand names meld better with the big chain stores' needs than already well-established fashion names like Halston... although we might see Karl Lagerfeld join the trend as well.

Technorati Tags: The New York Times, Eric Wilson, Target, Gap, Lutz and Patmos, Uniqlo, Volkswagen, Isaac Mizrahi, Karl Lagerfeld, Very Wang.

September 8, 2007

Hallmark Gets Paris Hot... Around the Collar

Paris Hilton is taking Hallmark to court for creating a card that uses her likeness and her trademarked phrase "that's hot." It's a good card but one must wonder if Paris's suit is to be successful. Or if this is yet another Paris Hilton publicity stunt?

Hallmark is using an image and a phrase that is very much in the public domain and is in the business of selling cards, not promoting its own blonde it-girl. Just because Paris has trademarked the phrase does n

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