April 14, 2008
Shared Names Breed Kinship—But Only If Your Name is NOT Your Brand
The New York Times reported last week on an interesting side effect of the now commonplace practice of ego surfing (looking yourself up in Google). People are making friends with their Googlegängers for the same reason women named Virginia move to Virginia: we have a natural affinity for people, places, and things that share our names.
Well, usually. If your namesake happens to be a porn star, you might not be so amused. And if your name is your brand, you might feel just as annoyed by the existence of Googlegängers as record company Apple Corps Ltd did when Apple Inc. (then Apple Computer Inc.) decided to go into the music-selling business.
A company can trademark its brand name and defend it against infringement and domain squatting, within reason, anyway. Apple Inc. challenges aspiring new brand name trademarks with impartial ruthlessness.
But you can’t trademark your own personal name, and you’re not likely to get very far if you accuse someone else who has as much right to the name as you do of domain squatting in order to cash in on your success, unless you are already far more famous than they are.
So if you’re not fortunate enough to be the only person with your personal name to show up in Google, or at the very least the first one to register that name as a domain, you might be better off giving your company a unique, memorable brand name. That gives you a chance to trademark it, grab the “.com” version, and establish your brand.
What’s more, creating a strong association between your name and your company’s helps distinguish you from your Googlegängers when friends and family are trying to find you online.
Technorati Tags: Googleganger, Apple Inc, Apple Corps Ltd, Google, Domain Names, Personal Name
Posted by Diane Prange at 8:05 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
April 7, 2008
New Labeling Laws Could Cause Havoc with Wine Brand Names
Proposed new labeling laws that do away with regional considerations are creating quite a problem for wine brand names.
For instance, one Swiss village is fighting for the right to use the name “Champagne” on its wines, despite the little known fact that the only real “Champagne” is made in the corresponding region in France, everything else is technically "sparkling wine."
Should the new laws go into effect, the significant equity behind regional names known even by the non-connoisseur, like “Champagne” or “Napa Valley” would be lost, as every brand of wine would have the right to label their "sparkling wine" as "Champagne." This would be catastrophic to the high end, traditional wines that we pay premium prices for.
Imagine trying to reposition a brand name like Moet or Dom Perignon versus a newer label by Lil Jon.”
Technorati Tags: Wine, Champagne, Dom Perignon, Alcohol, Wine Region, Lil John
Posted by William Lozito at 11:32 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
March 27, 2008
Will Wal-Mart Ruling Start Parody Naming Trend?
In copyright law, parody counts as “fair use.” So too in trademark law, it would seem. Wal-Mart accused Georgia resident Charles Smith of infringing on its trademark by selling products emblazoned “Wal-ocaust” and “Wal-Qaeda.”
It’s no surprise that Wal-Mart doesn’t find these particular parodies amusing, but even if Smith’s sites didn’t feature prominent disclaimers, it’s unlikely anyone would find the names—or the logos, for that matter—“confusingly similar.” The average person is plenty smart enough to realize that none of the T-shirts, posters, or bumper stickers comes from Wal-Mart.
And that’s exactly what Judge Timothy Batten concluded, as WebProNews reported. Smith is free to go on using the names “Wal-ocaust” and “Wal-Qaeda” to sell products.
Of course, Smith’s aim is to make a political point, not establish a business. Any company that chooses its name as a parody of another company risks obsolescence once the subject of the parody is no longer a household name. Some brands might continue to flourish even if no one gets the joke anymore, but if Wal-Mart went out of business, there would be no market for Wal-ocaust T-shirts.
Which is probably just what Charles Smith would love to see happen.
Technorati Tags: Wal-Mart, Wal-ocaust, Wal-Qaeda, Trademark, Charles Smith, Judge Batten, Logos, T-Shirts, Bumper Stickers
Posted by William Lozito at 4:42 PM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
Motorola Brand Chief Asset of Recent Breakup
The Daily Herald has a good story up about the value of the Motorola name. The right move, they say, would be for one entity of the recently divided company to continue using the name, probably the Mobile Devices business.
That’s interesting, because as the Herald correctly points out, usually in similar cases the company name is scrapped altogether. That still could happen, not least because some people feel that offering investors the ailing handset business (the one most customers associate the Motorola name with) is, as Extra Tech so eloquently puts it, like “putting lipstick on a pig.”
The rot started in earnest, says GigaOm, when the RAZR (another well loved brand name in the Motorola stable) “stopped being the next new thing.” Ironically, the new MOTORZR truncates that name even further, while offering what looks like the same old thing.
Extra Tech says that “right now, Motorola is simply a brand,” but one that could be very attractive to Chinese manufacturers who have little, to no brand name recognition in the United States.
It's interesting to see the fortunes of a company (or senior executive for that matter) change so quickly. A year or two ago Ed Zander, Chairman of the Board for Motorola, was poking fun at Samsung's naming, calling them "Same Sung."
I agree. The Motorola name has simply too much equity to be tossed.
Technorati Tags: Motorola, Brand Name, RAZR, MOTORZR, Mobile Devices, Phones
Posted by William Lozito at 11:59 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
March 14, 2008
Tribute or Threat? Shoetube Prompts Trademarking Questions
There are now dozens, if not hundreds, of video-sharing sites, but none so famous as YouTube. Now the clever spotters over at Springwise have discovered a niche video whose name is a tribute to that popularity.
Shoetube caters exclusively to shoe-lovers. If you’re an Imelda Marcos wannabe (oh, I am dating myself here), this site is for you.
I love the name. It’s clever, funny, and tells you exactly what you’re going to find on the site. But I do wonder about the fate of the intent-to-use trademark application that the owner of Powderhouse Productions has filed. It’s possible that even if Google doesn’t choose to file a cease-and-desist on behalf of the name YouTube, the examining attorney at the US Patent and Trademark Office will still reject the application.
There are other registered trademarks that end in “–tube,” but the rhyme makes it tricky, and the USPTO doesn’t look favorably on attempts to cash in on a competitor’s more famous name.
Of course, Google may face its own challenges (its TM for “YouTube” hasn’t made it all the way through the registration process yet), thanks to an abandoned mark for “YouTube” in the same class filed by a Belgian manufacturer of scientific equipment.
Let’s hope Shoetube makes it, but also that “-tube” doesn’t become the “i-” of 2008, with dozens of copycat names to follow.
Technorati Tags: Shoetube, YouTube, USPTO, Trademark, Shoes, Video, Shoetube, Naming
Posted by William Lozito at 1:11 PM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
March 4, 2008
Mountain Bike Product Naming Brings Out the Animal in Us
A South African bike manufacturer is getting ready to conquer the world by using some savvy brand naming.
Silverback Technologies makes the hardy Silverback bike, which is ”a symbol of reliability, strength, a leader of the pack, with a cool edge." Naming bikes after animals seems to be a trend. Advanced Sports Inc has named their new Fuji sub-brand after the Kestrel.
As for me, I still remember the Mongoose.
I’m just amazed that a name like Silverback took so long to be incorporated into a brand name. I am glad to see that an African company has done the honors, even if there are no Silverback’s in South Africa.
Technorati Tags: Bike, Product Naming, Silverback, Mongoose, Mountain Bike, South Africa, Bike, Kestrel
Posted by William Lozito at 7:35 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
March 3, 2008
Intel Atom: Processor Product Naming for Your PC, Fridge or Mirror
Intel, long known for their confusing naming strategies, has selected the name Atom for its new chip line that could find itself in all kinds of new devices, including many that “haven’t had a serious processor before,” like, say, your refrigerator, toaster or even your bathroom mirror.
The Atom naming replaces the Silverthorne code name and also will be used in the Centrino Atom brand name for those products (mostly mobile Internet devices) that carry only Intel processors.
The name also does away with the Diamondville code name processors for desktops and notebooks.
This naming launch has focused some bloggers on the (pretty vague) difference between notebooks and netbooks. As Tech-Ex says, “Great, more terminology.”
Intel's sub branding nomenclature is doing a nice job of balancing the emphasis of its master brand and new sub brands.
Technorati Tags:Atom, Intel, PC, Silverthorne, Centrino Atom, Diamondville, Naming
Posted by William Lozito at 8:04 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
February 25, 2008
What Paris Hilton and The Naked Cowboy Know About Brand Naming
There are two naming related trademark cases out there that have people smiling this morning. The first is a list on CNN of trademarked phrases from the recent past like “19-OOPS” and "Let's Get Ready to Rumble!" that are now off limits to anyone who wants to inject a little modern phraseology into their product naming because they have been trademarked.
Matt Sanchez points out that even the wordsmith Paris Hilton can “lay claim and monetize parts of the English language” for her phrase “that’s hot.”
The Traverse Legal blog thinks that trademarking your unique phrase “illustrates how some forethought can become profit down the road.” I have to agree.
I also think that New York street musician Robert Burck, a.k.a “the Naked Cowboy” might have a good case when he defends his mark against Mars for using his likeness in their advertising, not least because he seems to have actually taken out two registered trademarks on himself.
Dan Slater on the Wall Street Journal Law Blog asks what he needs to make this case, the answer actually being pretty simple. He needs to prove there is a likelihood of confusion between himself and his (trademarked and profitable) brand name and likeness, and the images in the advertisement. As Sunny Hostin points out on the CNN site, the Naked Cowboy may soon be able to afford “some very nice duds.”
Technorati Tags: Trademark, Paris Hilton, The Naked Cowboy, Lawsuit, Let's get ready to rumble!, Burck, Brand Naming
Posted by William Lozito at 7:36 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
January 31, 2008
Sony’s Buzz! Brand Naming Gets Buzztime Buzzing
The buzz in the blogosphere is that Sony is being sued by US based Buzztime Entertainment over the buzz naming in its Buzz! trivia game.
Buzztime does not (and probably cannot) trademark the word buzz but it is interesting to note that we are talking about two electronic games. Buzztime claims that Sony is capitalizing on its brand name and calls the trespass “"malicious, fraudulent, knowing, willful, and deliberate."
Joystiq.com wonders if the smart move would be for Sony to buy Buzztime outright to avoid a legal wrangle that it probably will lose: the two competing brand names are in a similar market and easily confused.
That said, the argument in Sony’s favor would be that buzzers and buzzing and indeed the word buzz is clearly associated with trivia games and its fair game for anyone, but I would imagine that Sony is in trouble here. They want to trademark Buzz! as well as two other versions of the word for use in the electronic trivia game field and that puts them head to head with Buzztime.
In addition, Buzztime has been around since 1985 and is pretty popular. I find it hard to believe that Sony isn’t aware that the word buzz has a certain automatic, built in association.
Technorati Tags: Sony, Buzztime, Buzz, Playstation, Trivia, Brand Naming, Trademarking
Posted by William Lozito at 7:29 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
January 25, 2008
Counterfeit Brand Naming Hotspot Tries To Go Legit With SilkStreet
In what Agenda Inc. refers to as a “highly ironic move,” notorious brand naming counterfeit hotspot Silk Street Market in Beijing has applied for a trademark to its own SilkStreet clothing label and warned counterfeiters not to copy it.
In what must be the most lenient criterion for reselling a high end brand in the world, the company solemnly assures us that only traders with ““no record of selling fake or shoddy products within six months and no [customer] complaints.” can sell SilkStreet brands.
This will surely raise a few eyebrows over at Burberry, Chanel, Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Prada, who won a symbolic $1,387.00 in a joint lawsuit against Silk Street and five of its tenants, “the first case in China to end in such a settlement.”
I’m thinking that it will be really hard to convince people that you are wearing a real SilkStreet shirt.
Technorati Tags: SilkStreet, counterfeit, trademarking, Brand Naming, Silk Street Market
Posted by William Lozito at 7:33 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
December 28, 2007
Google Prevails with Gu Ge Brand Name in China
What a difference a day makes. In life. And in trademark law.
We've blogged earlier in July of 2007 about the Chinese having difficulty pronouncing Google, which led the company to re-brand its search engine "Gu Ge."
In an earlier blog of April 2006 we acknowledged the conventional marketing wisdom of one brand globally. However, in the case of China, with four times the population of U.S., it was an appropriate trade off for Google to change its name there.
It turns out that Google registered the Gu Ge brand name in China only 7 days before another company, Gu Ge Technology did.
Gu Ge Technology tried to sue Google over Gu Ge, however, the Haidian People's Court in Beijing threw out the Gu Ge Technology's trademark suit since Google registered the Gu Ge name first.
Technorati Tags: Google, Gu Ge, Trademark, China
Posted by William Lozito at 9:41 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
December 21, 2007
Fairmont Lends Its Brand Name to Legendary Norfolk Hotel
Some people are not pleased that the legendary 103-year old Norfolk Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya - where Teddy Roosevelt stayed before his famous safari and favorite of Karen Blixen of Out of Africa fame - is being renamed Fairmont The Norfolk after a multi-million dollar renovation.
Fairmont Raffles International has made no secret of its intention to spread its branding through Africa and the East. People often get upset when iconic hotels change their names, such as when Boston's Ritz-Carlton was renamed after being acquired by the Taj hotel chain.
The Fairmont name is well-known worldwide, unlike the name "Norfolk Hotel," which is only known by people who are into Africana or are intimately familiar with Kenya.
Kenya's drive to bring in new tourists will be greatly helped by the Fairmont name, which allows people to book with confidence.
Technorati Tags: Kenya, Norfolk Hotel, Fairmont Raffles International, Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Taj Hotel
Posted by William Lozito at 9:35 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
December 19, 2007
Made in India: Is the World Ready For Luxury Indian Brand Names?
You probably have not heard of India's Tata Group, the country's largest automaker and possibly its biggest brand name, but you most certainly have heard of Jaguar and Land Rover.
These two brands may soon be sold to Tata Group for around $2 billion.
This is leading many experts to wonder if the world is ready for Indian luxury brand naming. Much as Martin Lindstrom did when Louis Vuitton moved its production to India.
Technorati Tags: Luxury Brands, Jaguar, Land Rover, Tata Group
Posted by William Lozito at 9:17 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
November 28, 2007
Trademarking: Knievel vs Kanyevel
Looks like Kanye West and Evel Knievel have settled their differences over West's use of Knievel's likeness and name in his video where the rapper appeared as Evel Kanyevel and re-enacted Knievel's ill fated attempt to jump the Snake River Canyon.
It is good to hear that the lawsuit Knievel launched last year has been settled "amicably," not least because the 69-year old Knievel referred to West's music in the press as "filth." It does go to show that if two people can sit down in a room and hash things out, great divides in brand naming might be resolved.
West's attorneys argued that he was protected under the first amendment because the video could be construed as "satire," which is an interesting means of defending what looked like a trademark violation.
It seems almost certain that if Knievel wanted to stick to his guns he'd have a case, not least because the video seems to damage Knievel's reputation and infringe on his trademark.
Officially, the lawsuit went into mediation, which probably means that Kanye wrote Knievel a check behind closed doors which prompted the legendary stuntman to say West was a "wonderful guy and quite a gentleman."
Technorati Tags: Kanye West, Evel Knievel, Trademark
Posted by William Lozito at 8:10 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
November 14, 2007
Product Naming: Penryn Processors Anything but Obscure
A quick look at Engadget confirms that Intel's new Penryn processors are getting plenty of buzz, particularly now that they're already shipping. And back since the buzz began, people have been asking "What's a Penryn when it's at home?"
"Pennrynn" is Cornish for "promontory" and is the name of a town in (you guessed it) Cornwall. That Penryn is presumably the namesake of Penryn, California, after which the processors are named.
Yes, descriptive names have their place. Intel chooses its product code names from among lists of obscure place-names proposed by the design team. According to Dileep Bhandarkar of the Technology@Intel blog, Penryn, CA is near one of the development sites for the processors. He adds, "The project started originally in Israel under the name Hagar, but one quick look at the comic section of the paper convinced us that that was a Horrible name!"
I quite like the name Penryn, though I have to admit that "Core 2 Extreme" does a better job of explaining the product's features and benefits.
Technorati Tags: Engadget, Penryn, Cornwall, Intel
Posted by William Lozito at 8:03 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
November 5, 2007
Branding 101: Paying to Prevent New Naming at U. Wisco
Yahoo! News just picked up a story that Andrew Samwick at Dartmouth blogged about last week: a group of donors to the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business has donated $85 million to the dean to not rename the school for twenty years.
This is a reverse naming strategy for Universities, where the biggest donor usually gets to put its name on the building. This has caused some consternation over the years at places like the University of Iowa where the gift and proposed name change of The College of Public Health after Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield was nixed due to a (rather obvious) potential conflict with other donors.
I think that we will always need to rename buildings after generous benefactors, of course, as Yale-New Haven Hospital (YNHH) and Yale University recently has done with the Smilow Cancer Hospital, but the safest renaming policies seem to be to name sport arenas after beloved coaches or important buildings after retired university heads.
Of course, I have said before, if you do not have enough money (or permission) to name a building after yourself, you could always just rename a classroom, office, or just a locker.
Technorati Tags: University, Yale, University of Iowa, Blue Cross Blue Shield
Posted by William Lozito at 12:21 PM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
October 30, 2007
Company Naming: Homework Pays Off
Like it or not, one of the factors in your choice of a company name is whether the name you want (and, increasingly, the domain name that goes with it) is already taken. It's always been important to check the trademark database for the country you're operating in before hanging out your shingle, unless you like getting Cease and Desist letters from those who have already legally protected "your" name, that is. But now a registered trademark isn't the only obstacle to the name you want.
In the course of writing an article about presence software for cell phones, John Cook of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer discovered that there are two companies with almost identical names offering similar services in this area: Whrrl and Whirrl. Talk about likelihood of confusion with a competitor! (That's the primary basis on which the US Patent and Trademark office denies new applications.)
Andrew at Domain Name Wire (not to be confused, of course, with NameWire) argues that the real winner of this name competition is whoever owns Whirl.com (a parked domain that takes you to findlinks.com), because that's what people will type into their address bars.
This is quite possibly true. There are arguments for and against using alternative spellings for company names, and those who think the dropped-vowel trend and most others common to Web 2.0 companies are just stupid, but the problem here isn't really with using a non-traditional spelling. There's an obvious fix for that, which is to buy the domains with the most likely misspellings and redirect them to your website.
Of course, before you can do that, the domains you want have to be available or at least for sale. To find the answer to the first question, do a search at any domain registrar. In many cases, they'll suggest alternative spellings and additional domains you might want to buy if your chosen .com is available.
If they are, you can make them an offer. If they aren't, you have to decide whether it makes better business sense to choose a different company and domain name, or to forego traffic you might miss through using an unfamiliar spelling.
In either case, it's far better to make an informed decision than to be surprised by the existence of a similarly-named competitor.
Technorati Tags: Whrrl, Whirrl, Trademarks, Company Naming
Posted by William Lozito at 8:43 AM
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
October 2, 2007
New Yankee Stadium Offers Risky Naming Rights Opportunities
Many bloggers were relieved to learn that the New Yankee Stadium will retain its name... sort of. It is set to be named "Yankee Stadium at (insert company name here) Plaza."
Even more reassuring is the fact that it will not look like "Times Square" inside, although there will be plenty of sponsorship opportunities inside the park for companies who want to give their brand name some prime exposure. Yes, you could probably get your name up on a hot dog stand or even a bathroom.
It is certainly true that the Yanks have given up a great deal of money to retain the Yankee Stadium name. The new park, with far better facilities, is going to cost in the range of $800 million to build. I am glad that the new Yankee Stadium has found a middle way between observing tradition and embracing naming rights.
But I was sad to learn that Babe Ruth Park will be torn down in the name of progress and I sympathize with those who love the tradition of the place. Will this mean the Yankees may face their own "Curse of the Bambino?"
You just have to wonder why they couldn't give the House that Ruth Built a facelift. Tradition and superstition are big in baseball, and possibly some of both will rub off on the naming rights within the stadium.
If enough fans feel left out of the skyboxes, being associated with the stadium may not be a home run for those wanting to win over the hearts and minds of New Yorkers.
Technorati Tags: Naming, Yankee Stadium, Times Square
Posted by William Lozito at 9:26 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
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
Posted by William Lozito at 8:58 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBackSeptember 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.
Posted by William Lozito at 8:34 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
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.
Posted by William Lozito at 8:58 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
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.
Posted by William Lozito at 10:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack</