Company and Product Naming, Brands and Trademarks: rants & raves, cheers & jeers, fun & foibles
Not evey mother names her future Hollywood siren with a hot name like Raquel Welch. But if you start life as Tara Leigh Patrick, and really want to make an impression on your fans, then you deserve a big award for changing your name to Carmen Electra.
Maybe you even deserve two awards, for creating both a hot first name and a smart last name. As a naming professional I loved you before I even saw how you light up a show.
As it celebrates its 10th Anniversary, it is interesting to look back and see that the techies who founded Paypal first named the company Confinity. It is fun to read John Powers firsthand account of how this all came to be .. see www.Confinity.com. He is quick to point out that he never came up with that name. Regardless, Paypal is so much better than Fieldlink, the name he first used.
If you have ever shopped for or sold goods on eBay, you know the magic of Paypal. If you have ever paid or received money from contract services half way around the world, you know the magic of Paypal and the convenience of paying people almost instantly when they don’t take credit cards.. or want to use them if they do have them.
Now if only they provided the same level of support to English speakers in Spain that they provide Spanish speakers in California, that would be the icing on the cake. Especially for the rural community where no mail goes to a physical house address. How can they deny full service when you are a property owner simply because your mail goes to a box number? Not all countries and rural towns are spoiled with the US level of mail delivery! In more and more parts of the world, you go get your mail at a mail box center.
After their disaster with the name Phaeton, you would think VW had learned more than to just go out to a German Auto magazine for a new name. Even though the name was supposedly submitted by a reader - and they now say it is from Tiger and Iguana. With Latin America as a key market (as well as a number of factory sites) for them, you would have thought they would pay more heed to the Latino connotations.
Oh well, I am sure the trademark lawyers like it, and with their branding dollars they can do what they like. After all, they have had Rabbits and Foxes and Beetles, why not an Iguana from Tijuana?
PS Since Tig is a friendly nickname for the diminutive of Tiger, this name may actually fit a little better than at first glance.
One of the advantages of having “first mover” advantage in any industry is the fact that you can sometimes legally tie up a good name which later would otherwise be judged to be generic - and therefore non-registrable. Such is the case with the name TopRank® for search engine optimization and marketing services. They have recently been blogging about how they have to be aggressive in protecting this name, especially in an online environment (the only field for which they have the trademark).
If the USPTO did their literature search today, they would see the words top and rank (or ranking) are surely widely used and therefore generic. But it is too late. Someone moved fast and was smart, although it really is a difficult name to protect and to own as a brand, since people have strong existing expectations of the words, before they are even educated to the fact that it is someone’s trademark. And there are many ways around it. And what is the industry generic way of saying getting a top ranking if top rank is a specific trademark?
So this award goes to them for trying to protect the name. Not for picking a name that is not unique enough. This is one of many cases I have recently run into, which is why I was reminded (writing as The Name Critic at Brighter Naming) to select Rollerblade® for recent analysis. They are a case study example of how to do it right. To protect the name Rollerblade, they told the industry and the press that the generic descriptor for the product category was In-Line Skates. For all I know (and strongly suspect) they made up In-Line Skates afterwards. Doesn’t matter.. the rest of the world has to describe their products as In-Line Skates, and can only use the term Rollerblade in its proper legal brand (now of the Nordica ski company) sense.
Similarly, in the biotech field, Genentech® is almost a generic if it was first used today, instead of the strong brand and category leader it has become. As an early mover (very early), they have polarized the rest of the word away from names using Gene and Technology…. which so many still dream of.. the basic descriptors for many of them.
In this modern world of super brands, isn’t it amazing how we take any name or logo for granted once it has been properly seared into our gray matter? My first award has to go to the relatively younger brand of Starbucks. I say the name, you smell the coffee. You walk down the street, you can feel the pull just from the decor. But what about that mermaid? What is she doing in the logo? Is she the star who gets paid the big bucks?
And then there is the old classic American Express card. A symbol of American wealth and stature for many years - personified by a Roman Gladiator! 
My history isn’t very good though I do know the Romans traveled a lot and conquered many lands. But not the Americas. How come it is not the Roman Express card? Has this Roman become one of us, just like Ellen Degeneres calls him “one of my people” in her commercial?
Now what logo are you going to use with your new company name?
P.S. Know any other great examples?
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