Behold the Seiko Ananta.

This is a spring drive chronograph watch that is set to compete head on with Rolex with a price range to match.

That's right, it's a Seiko. But therein lies a naming and branding story worthy of careful study.

First of all, Seiko has long been associated in the American consumer's mind with cheap and cheerful quartz watches, even though their watches have been to the ocean floor, the moon, the Olympics and in numerous James Bond films. As Zero Hedge says, this is their Lexus.

The entire brand is getting an overhaul and they are using this brand as a means of providing a unique experience for their consumers and to prove to the world that they can create top quality watches with real brand equity.

Already seen as a premium brand in Asia, Seiko is redefining itself to the rest of the world as the minutes tick by.

This month The Fashion Watches for Women blog announced that Seiko was the "new hip name in watches." With brand name timepieces like "Orange Monster, Black Samurai, White Knight" that are revered in Asia, it's easy to see the watches booming worldwide.

Peter Farrar, a fashionable watch guru states that Seiko and Armani are now two of the most popular names in timepieces.

The Ananta is really something special. AskMen.com gave it a very high ranking, stating that it is the men's watch to own in 2010.

The timepiece also received much attention at Baselworld 2010, the watch industry's annual trade fair.

Seiko is pushing their brand name into the stratosphere using a smart branding strategy. The name "Ananta" is Sanskrit for "the infinite" and it references the ancient craftsmanship of the orient very nicely. Although some say that people at Baselworld thought the watch was curiously called "the banana.'

More important is the art of "Katana", which they have linked beautifully to the Ananta. Katana is the centuries old trade of sword making. This is referenced in the design of the watch as well as the polish of the case and bracelet.

The Antana website features a video of a sword being made before it splashes into the watch itself. The introduction of this world has caught the imagination of the entire blogosphere. What do swords have to do with watches? It's a forced association, of course, but a massively effective one.

The Swiss may have the reputation for making good watches sealed, but the Japanese have always been able to produce beautiful swords and associated craftsmanship. It's brilliant, really.

This is a case of a brand taking its weakness, association with Japanese watchmaking which is seen as cheap but dependable, and turning it on its head.

I want one.

Technorati Tags: Seiko, Antana, Katana, watches, fashion, Rolex, , Branding/a> Seiko Branding

Russia has unveiled the first Olympic logo inspired by a web address.

The logo for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics is a mashup of the domain name - it's all blue lowercase with no graphic save for the Olympic rings. The words sochi.ru are right there for anyone who wants to surf the site.

The slogan of the games is "Gateway to the Future" which was "chosen to promote Sochi 2014 as a catalyst for long-lasting sporting, social, economic and environmental legacy." To this end the games will use as much sustainable timber as possible.

The launch of the logo was delayed a day due to a terrorist attack in St. Petersburg making the celebrations somewhat muted.

This slogan is part of an effort to showcase Russia to the world. According to Inside the Games, "It is the gateway for the world to discover Russia's passion, innovation and excellence through hosting the 2014 Olympic Winter Games."

I am pretty impressed: not only is this logo using a domain name, it is using the .ru domain in a bid to really promote all things Russian - even in cyberspace.

Technorati Tags: Sochi, Winter Olympics, 2014, Winter Games, Russia, Gateway to the Future

President Obama inserted his foot straight into his mouth by describing his poor bowling skills as "like the Special Olympics" on Jay Leno.

Just why being developmentally disabled should make one a particularly bad bowler is not very clear, but the joke would not have been any more appropriate if the president had said "Paralympics" instead.

This is no longer an America which finds jokes about the disabled funny.

In a curious case of timing, the Special Olympics is about to launch a campaign to stop the use of the word "retard."

You could say, however, that this campaign started 40 years ago, with the foundation of the Special Olympics. The name of the organization is not "Retarded Olympics," or even "Developmentally Disabled Olympics." (The latter, in addition to being a clumsy name, was not a term in common usage 40 years ago). "Special Olympics" was a conscious choice to re-brand intellectual disabilities.

And yet "special" has almost become synonymous with that "R-word" we now avoid in polite society. "Special needs" can cover a wide array of accomodations, but "special education" always refers to the intellectually disabled, not the gifted.

What happens to a brand when the euphemism itself starts to take on derogatory overtones, even if only in the mouths of the mean-spirited?

Unfortunately this diversion from positive connotations is not limited to the social realm - it is also very present in the world of category and product naming.

An interesting example of this is how the Gaming Industry came to represent gambling, because of the unfavorable associations the term garnered over the years.

In addition, Erectile Dysfunction, more often referred to as ED, replaced the term impotence for similar reasons.

However, there are instances where the wrong words were chosen for a product or category name right from the get-go.

One such example was "rapeseed oil," which is now most often referred to as canola oil for obvious reasons.

You may have also heard of "Chinese Gooseberry," which is what New Zealanders originally called Kiwi Fruit before the category name was changed for marketing reasons when it was exported to the U.S.

As you can see, whether you're on national television talking to Leno or selecting a product or category name, the value of choosing your words carefully is undeniable.

Technorati Tags: Special Olympics, Category Names, Product Names, Chinese Gooseberry, Rapeseed Oil, R-Word, President Obama, Jay Leno

This year's Olympics was a competition between the Chinese and a few non-invited competitors who managed to steal the show a few times. I'm of course talking about the brutal brand naming competition that went on while the athletes did their thing.

This year we saw multi-national brand names face stiff competition from Chinese brand names nobody had heard of. The overall winner, according to the Huffington Post, was Coke and its "shuang qi lai - "refreshment rising" tagline. However, Adidas and its "Impossible Is Nothing" campaign was a also a success, while GE managed to communicate its new "green" image with some flair.

The point is that China wanted to use the Olympics to showcase the country along with the country's brand names. China has what is called "high product acceptance with low global brand recognition." However, the Huffington Post notes that some Chinese companies really did stand out during this year's Olympics: Lenovo moved into the premier brand space, as did "non-official" brand names, such as China' s Merchant bank which just happens to have the same tagline (he, or "harmony" ) as the theme of the opening ceremony.

Various athletric gear brand names also had their day in the sun: like Nike (whom we all know) and Li Ning and Anta (whom we do not). Li Ning is the name of the fellow who lit the torch during the opening ceremony, but is also conveniently the brand name of an athletic apparel company.

Guerilla brand name promotion was at an all time high this year. Case in point was Nike's capitalization on hurdler Liu Xiang's heartbreaking defeat. Nike quickly ran an ad that said "Love sport even when it breaks your heart."

Kinesio got some attention (they make the athletic tape that beach volleyball player Kerri Walsh uses), as did Facebook (who owes Phelps a thank you for mentioning how many friends he has).

Tim Delaney reckons that the average sponsorship costs around $100 million all included and that regular sponsorship still cannot be beat in developing markets, but in mature markets, where wise guys like Wasatch Beer can dub themselves "Unofficial Beer of the 2002 Winter Games" you may want to think twice before paying to be the official sponsor.

This might explain why 60% of Chinese people polled thought that Pepsi, not Coke (who paid $78 million for the privilege), was the official Olympic drink.

Technorat Tags: Olympics, Coke, Chinese Brands, Guerilla Brand Name Promotion, Li Ning, Liu Xiang, Michael Phelps, Nike, Wasatch Beer, Pepsi, Sponsorship, Kinesio, Adidas, GE, Love Sport

It may or may not be surprising to you that more people in China are learning English as a second language than there are people in the US learning English as a primary language.

English is the international language of business and will only become more so in the future. It is interesting to note that the Chief Executive of LG Electronics, Yong Nam, recently declared that all business at LG will be conducted in English, even at its corporate headquarters in South Korea.

Michael Erard, in a recent Wired magazine article, has his own take on how the Chinese might influence the English language long term. English, according to Erard, "is happily leading an alternative lifestyle without us."

Actually, it's been doing that for a long time, as have other languages when they served as the language of commerce or scholarship. Julius Caesar would have been hard put to understand the Latin of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Very little of the French used as a lingua franca in North Africa would win the approval of the Académie française. And then there's George Bernard Shaw's joke about England and America being "two countries separated by a common language."

Thanks to the Internet, however, native speakers of a language are now much more aware of the way others (mis)use their language. We've pointed out a number of instances on this blog before, with discussions of "Konglish" and "Engrish."

Thanks to the upcoming Beijing Olympics, the variant provoking the most comment at the moment is "Chinglish," English as employed by the Chinese, familiar to many of us from restaurant menus.

On the same day Erard's essay appeared in Wired, the Telegraph in the UK asserted that "English will turn into Panglish in 100 years."

Frankly, I doubt it. Even the expert interviewed by the Telegraph reporter admitted that she couldn't predict whether there would be one version of "Panglish" used across the globe, or "scores of wildly varying Englishes, many or most of them heading toward mutual unintelligibility."

We might, in fact, end up with both and neither.

If the Chinese speaker and the Hindi speaker want to converse in English, they're likely to need to use something closer to American or British English than to the English they speak with their countryfolk. One of the reasons they'd both be using English is because their native languages are so different from one another, and would therefore influence their use of English in ways that are likely to cause more confusion than using Hollywood English.

Furthermore, the number of non-native speakers of a language doesn't seem to influence its use by native speakers.

While English has always been a voracious importer of foreign words, the only way Chinglish could come to dominate in America would be if there were suddenly more Chinese speakers than English speakers living here and they produced all of our movies, TV, and radio. And that still wouldn't be likely to stop the older generations from speaking the language they grew up with, any more than language reform movements in Germany or Holland have.

Technorati Tags: English, Chinglish, China, LG Electronics, Panglish, Beijing Olympics, Yong Nam, Language Reform

The Chinese government is concerned about the effect mistranslated menus could have on foreign visitors during the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. And small wonder, if the English-language versions of restaurant menus in China resemble those found in other parts of the world.

Of the 2,753 items on the list, the BBC News cites "burnt lion's head" and "virgin chicken," but those are fairly minor offenders by comparison with some of the examples available on the Internet.

John Rahoi's posting has been widely recognized as the "worst menu translation ever," with good reason, as scarcely a single item on it can be identified as something that would be safe to eat.

Would you want to order one of these?

• Cowboy leg
• Rurality salad
• Good to eat mountain
• Slippery meat in king's vegetable pillar
• Fragrant bone in garlic in strange flavor

The Karazen Forum has a few gems, as well, of which my favorites are "government abuse chicken" and "husband and wife's lungs."

Authentic Chinese food can be intimidating enough to Westerners without toxic-sounding mistranslations.

Our expert in the Chinese language will be providing input into this translation exercise.

Technorati Tags: 2008 Olympics, Beijing, John Rahoi, The Karazen Forum.

The premise of this headline is really silly, I admit.

Both verbal branding and visual branding work hand in hand to create an image and interest in a product or service.

There is an interesting article in today's Chicago Tribune on Olympic logos. The article does a wonderful job of putting a number of Olympic logos in one place.

My reaction to all the logos is that they are different but yet very similar. It seems like all the Olympic logos are within the same color palette.

Technorati Tags: Olympics, Visual Branding, Verbal Branding