March 11, 2010
Sony "Moves" Away From Arc Naming and Branding; Better Than "Giggle Stick"
Oops, well I'm only human. Back in January I believed the hype and predicted that Sony would name its new PlayStation wireless controller the "Arc."
Nope. It's going to be called the "Move" and it's coming out this fall in a kit costing under $100.
CNET's Crave says that by unveiling the name Sony can start its all-out attack on Nintendo. The name was announced yesterday at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.
It works with the PlayStation Eye web cam, and Sony claims 36 third party developers and publishers have signed up to support the new product, not to mention the 20 games Sony has planned for it as well.
Its subcontroller adds a joystick and a directional pad.
There were some pretty provocative ideas for the naming sent in by Joystiq readers, but when Joystiq's blog did a poll on it, Move won out.
Joystiq also notes that the logo looks suspiciously like the letter "A", because, they posit, Sony did want to name their controller the Arc but ran into trademark issues.
Already blogosphere wags have generated eight "better" names for the thing, including "Giggle Stick," "Party Rod," and "The Sceptre of Ultimate Power".
Um, maybe not, but good effort bloggers.
The bottom line is that this controller launching with this name is a good move by Sony.
Technorati Tags: Sony, PS3, Move, Arc, Joystiq, Video Game,
Posted by William Lozito at 8:05 AM| Comments (0)
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March 10, 2010
The Unfortunate Saga of Risqué Domain Naming and Branding Continues with the Sale of Sex.com
The domain name Sex.com is up for grabs.
That's right, potentially the most expensive domain name in history is in foreclosure and will be sold at auction, with bids starting at a cool $1 million. It was sold for $14 million in 2006, which was a record then until Insure.Com went for $16 million.
I have previously written about how the domain name Sex.com has been poorly managed, and even swindled from previous owners. Now, the story seems to have continued its downward spiral.
It will be sold "as is" in the equivalent of a foreclosure sale and should generate a lot of interest, as it can apparently generate $15,000 of revenue a day if managed correct.
Sex.com is one of the top five most profitable domain names on the web today, the others being Fund.com, Porn.com, Poker.com and Business.com.
The Sex.com domain name has been mismanaged, of course, and is surrounded by clouds of legal skullduggery. It is claimed that one of the previous owners had the name stolen from him, and commenced a ten-year manhunt to find the culprit.
DOM Partners, a New Jersey lender is foreclosing the domain and will auction it on March 18, at the New York law firm, Windels Marx Lane & Mittendorf.
Ecoconsultancy has a great post up entitled "Six things you can learn from Sex.com's failure," and number one is: A great domain only goes so far.
I have to agree.
It takes more than a name to make a product or a domain name shine. However, we at Strategic Name Development can say, a great name never hurts.
Technorati Tags: Sex.com, Domain Name, Auction, Ecoconsultancy, Foreclosure,
Posted by William Lozito at 9:34 AM| Comments (0)
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March 9, 2010
Movie Naming and Branding: Appealing to Oscar and the Boys
I was amused to see that Disney was changing the name of its new film, Rapunzel, to Tangled in order to attract more boys to the film. Seems that The Princess and the Frog wasn't a big hit with the boys, and Disney fears, probably correctly, that the word "Princess" was to blame.
Because Rapunzel is actually a princess, Disney is worried that this new movie might face the same fate. According to the LA Times, "Disney can ill afford a moniker that alienates half the potential audience, young boys, who are needed to make an expensive family film a success."
They also considered "Unbraided" and "The Thief in the Tower." Good thing they decided on Tangled. I just cannot see how "unbraided" was supposed to appeal to boys.
This will be in 3-D, and I think that the trailer looks pretty good.
Movie naming has been on my mind lately, especially since Kate Torovnick did a great piece on How to Win the Oscar: pick a great name.
She notes that "Grand Hotel", "The Great Ziegfeld" and "From Here to Eternity" were all films with really inspiring names and which won despite the odds. So did "American Beauty" and "Shakespeare in Love," which beat "Saving Private Ryan" in 1999: "Shakespeare sounds instantly classic, and who doesn't like love?"
Torovnick suggests that Precious had the best chance of winning and that "producers should definitely start using more positive adjectives in their film titles."
Okay, Kate, I like your thinking but, remember that The Hurt Locker came out on top. Maybe it actually is about the quality of the film, and a little bit of Oscar politics for good measure.
Technorati Tags: Oscar, Hurt Locker, Rapunzel, name change, Tangled, Precious, movie titles
Posted by William Lozito at 8:05 AM| Comments (0)
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March 8, 2010
Obama Naming and Branding Losing Luster
All politics aside, the Obama brand name is not helping some businesses.
An article out today looks at the dozen or so Michigan businesses that have used the name to sell everything from pharmaceuticals to realty to auto body repair. And, funnily enough, the President hasn't clamped down on these small business owners, in fact, one of them actually got a friendly call from the White House. Nonetheless, consumers aren't buying it.
The building of the Obama brand, of course, is not new. There are plenty of political analyses out there describing how he used branding to create an excellent image for himself.
However, the appeal of the name seems to flow out of politics, as evidenced by the apparent Israeli love for it.
But now the brand doesn't sell, and that includes political t-shirts with his likeness and name on them. The Obama store in Union Station has been closed.
Naomi Klein, author of No Logo, a book speaking to the evils of branding, wrote last year about how the Obama brand is just another example of how corporate branding has taken over American politics. If that's the case (and I am unsure if it is), then the brand itself is liable to face the same challenges of any other in the marketplace.
I'm not sure what it means when a pharmacy named after Obama decides to change its name to a far more generic Community Health Pharmacy, but I am thinking that the President's brand name equity may be in trouble.
Technorati Tags: Barack Obama, No Logo, Brand Equity, Branding, Names
Posted by William Lozito at 8:56 AM| Comments (0)
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March 3, 2010
Topeka Changes it Naming to Google...for The Month of March
I was amused to see that Topeka, Kansas has renamed itself "Google, Kansas," at least for this month.
The mayor is trying to attract the attention of the Internet giant's Fiber for Communities program that would make local Internet connections 100 times faster.
There are no plans to change the name permanently. Topeka is a Native American word meaning 'a good place to grow potatoes' although the area is better known for its soybean crops.
The move is part of a plan to keep Topeka's young people at home but it has attracted some unfair derision across the blogosphere. Techcrunch starts out by saying "We're Not In Kansas Anymore. Well, We Are - Google, Kansas," but notes that the benefit could be "huge" and that the city has changed its name before.
For a brief time in 1998 the city became "ToPikachu" after the Pokemon character. So the Google name is "100 times more sane". PC World riffs the same thought saying "Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Topeka anymore."
Networkworld takes a darker tone, saying that this is yet more example of 'Google groveling,' with the requisite Wizard of Oz quote: ("There's no place like Google; there's no place like Google ..." ).
Oh, calm down. The Think Big Topeka website points out why this name change is a great idea because the upside of having that kind of Internet connection and close association with Google would certainly put "Topeka on the global map".
If a 31 day name change can do all this, I say why not?
Technorati Tags: Google, Kansas, Topeka, name change, Names, Topikachu,
Posted by William Lozito at 4:06 PM| Comments (0)
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March 2, 2010
TigerText Brand Name Will Irritate Cheating Tigers, and The University of Memphis
I have to laugh at the new TigerText app that really does seem aimed at philandering spouses.
The ironic name aside, this allows you to send text messages to other phones that can delete themselves and cannot be forwarded. This is great if you really don't want any evidence of your midnight messaging to fall in the wrong hands, like, say, your wife's lawyers.
David Letterman has already made a few well placed jokes about this product.
The makers are being coy about the name, which they claim it just coincidentally shares with a noted cheating spouse. Is it really named after Tiger Woods? The makers say not so.
iPhone Scoop says one of the makers points out that ""Tigers are notoriously difficult animals to track" and notes that it was coming to us in the Lunar Year of the Tiger.
Um, yeah.
The people who might really take umbrage are in Memphis: The University of Memphis uses this name for its own cell phone text messaging service which is far less nefarious, this one is an emergency alert.
Technorati Tags: Brands, Tiger, Text, Cell Phone, Names, University of Memphis, App
Posted by William Lozito at 8:11 AM| Comments (0)
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March 1, 2010
Chinese Naming and Branding the Way of the Future?
I'm fascinated by the future of brand naming in China and happy that we have already been involved in it. My gut feeling is that we are seeing the world of branding and naming happen at an accelerated pace.
Right now, it seems that the Chinese, especially at the regional level, are all about price points and trademarks - there were 800,000 applications in 2009 alone!
Still, there is a view that the Chinese are starting to look for good homegrown names even as they create weird mash-up names that are knock offs of the western brands we all know and love. One such example is pictured at right.
The fact is, creating a Chinese brand name is very difficult.
There is an entire world of syllables, imagery and phraseology that is a challenge to any naming and branding company, although we in the West are quickly learning how to create appealing Chinese names for Chinese customers.
At least one company in San Francisco is headed by a person who speaks both Chinese and English and one look at all the challenges that go into a Chinese name can give one pause.
One tidbit:
Your Chinese company or brand name should be two to three characters and never more than five. The more characters in the name, the weaker it sounds and the less memorable it becomes. The name should also be easy to pronounce and free from negative political, social, historical, or psychological associations.
Is it worth it? Yes, of course. This will soon be the world's biggest consumer market. Every naming company has to be involved in China.
There is no doubt in my mind that the country will soon be a goldmine of interesting brand names, and now is the time to be involved.
Technorati Tags: Brands, Wilson, China, Menlow, Names, Transliteration
Posted by William Lozito at 8:10 AM| Comments (0)
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