Name Awards

If you ever doubted the power of brand names….

Business Week (Aug 3) has a powerful article on The Rush to Grab Orphan Brands. Wow.. who knew so many powerful brands were homeless? But it just goes to show you how the magic is in the total brand, as personified by the brand handle – the name itself.

Smucker’s used to make fun of themselves along the lines of “with a name like that, it had better be good”. Now they are the new owners of Folgers. I still don’t know where the name Folgers originated, but on the few occasions I drink instant coffee, it has to be Folgers for me – even if they are now owned by a jam (jelly) company. And I am glad they are no longer an orphan.

Amazon’s shoe fetish is no longer Endless

In the August 3rd issue of Business Week, they report on Amazon’s shoe fetish after Amazon announced they were buying Zappos, the top US online shoe retailer.

Apparently Amazon had been trying to build their own online shoe store for years. No wonder it took so long – they called it Endless.com! For a company that has so many divisions under the Amazon brand, I don’t see where this logic came from. But I really do like how Zappos manages its substore brands, using internet domain names the way they were designed to be used. So we have:

Separately, for my student a few years back who pounded the desk and said people will never buy shoes online, I think this $800 million deal proves you were wrong.

And for all those who asked what kind of name Zappos was, little did they know how strong this name would be for a great brand. Yes, Zapatas are shoes in Spanish. No, the founder is not Latino, he is Asian! But as always happens, the brand promise is always about the experience – which is why I expect this merger to go so well…. two companies that are really passionate about service.

A paragon of names, except when they are all Paragons

At a function last week the speaker woke me up when he casually mentioned in passing “one of those Paragon companies”. I had worked with at least one Paragon Software company before, and vaguely remembered some name confusion.

Little did I know how much more complicated it had become. And how ironic -  since the dictionary defines Paragon as “a model of excellence.”

So today we have Paragon Software, Paragon Software Group, Paragon Software Solutions, and Paragon Photo Imaging. Turns out that none of these were the Paragon I remembered. That Paragon had obviously seen the light and changed their name to Overwatch.

Don’t you like a country where you can incorporate a business only at the state level, and not federal level, and your state doesn’t care what names exist in any other states, even if they are just across the river?

Now quick question for all you young brandmeisters and law students: Who owns the Paragon trademark on software? More importantly for all your sales and marketing execs: When someone refers a prospect to Paragon, who are they going to call?

Silicon Valley networking group names

My friends over at Bootstrappers Breakfast® were a little miffed when I laughed on hearing they had received their registered trademark certificate, but it had no image anywhere -not even the accompanying paperwork. Then I explained I had looked for mine too when I got my first trademark registered. After all the fuss the USPTO makes to ensure you give them an acceptable image, it is a surprise when it does not get echoed back on the certificate – but that means you filed for a Word Mark, rather than a logo itself.

So the words Bootstrappers Breakfast are now a registered trademark, and no one else can use that name for business networking meetings. But it is not tied to any specific graphics logo. The one submitted with the application was just to prove they are using it somewhere.

Another very effective networking group, this one for programmers, is called Silicon Valley Code Camp. Where else would hundreds of programmers come together for one weekend just to hang out and learn programming tricks and tools? And no one pays to attend, no one gets paid to present and no one pays for advertising. Peter Kellner, the ultimate .net and independent Microsoft development guru, manages it all from blogging tools and his email lists.

This year some big sponsors (read developer groups at major software tool vendors) have already stepped up – mostly providing fuel for hungry hackers so they don’t need to miss anything. And the event is not even until October so it will surely full up again as over 300 people are already registered.

Since I once was a techy (including supporting Peter), I am one of the few marketing people invited. Now let’s see if enough programmers are interested in my talk on how to make complete products for the session to actually fly. Then they can move on to Sean Murphy’s talk on bootstrapping a business – a mini version of his breakfast series – to learn how to launch a company.

Is the hotel named after the model? Or vice versa?

I think I need to present a name award to the CityCenter development in Las Vegas for naming their one hotel Vdara and another Veer. The latter name we know and understand, especially when you see how it’s twin towers veer off course. Book your room or tour today at www.vdara.com but don’t think of using this name for any other product or service. They have done some serious trademark application filings already.

But is Vdara a purely coined name? It certainly is unique. I would pronounce it “Vi dara” but am afraid many will say “V dara”.

But where do these names come from? Surely it is not coincidental that there is a fabulous photo model named Vdara Veer! See a lot more of her on www.ModelMayhem.com.

What a lovely chicken or the egg situation to study, especially if you like lovely models – of the human kind or the residential hotel condo kind!

Lots of power from the sun.. and 3 companies with the same name!

As usual, I was checking trademarks before writing about a name. I thought there was a great educational story about the early-mover advantage of a name like Sunpower. At the same time, I was wondering when combinations of the words sun and power would be thought of as generic in the solar power industry.

Imagine my surprise to discover that the first Sunpower I was thinking of, the one that used to be largely owned by Cypress Semiconductor, was only one of three major Sunpowers in the country. So this first one is often referred to as Sunpower Corp. (of San Jose, CA, and Taiwan). They are a public company (SPWRA and SPWRB) and they have the registered trademark on the name for photovoltaic solar panels, etc.

Secondly there is Sunpower of Ohio. They also have a registered trademark on the name but for Stirling Engine technology rather than pholtaic systems. (A Stirling Engine systems uses reflectors to focus the heat of the sun on a contained liquid that then warms up causing it to spin and drive  a generator. Reminds me of a modern day steam train. But very effective since it requires no fuel other than sunshine). And they have major contracts right in the state of California too with very big power companies!

Then there is Sun Power Inc of Colorado. They are a large non-profit in the greater Denver area providing a host of various power solutions to local residents and businesses. They have just received an $80 million grant to aid in their cause, so they are non-trivial too.

Having multiple companies with the same, or similar names, in a new industry, is not unusual. What is strange here is that they have all grown to significant size without one managing to out-lawyer the others to get sole possession of the name. Let’s see who blinks first. I predict at least one of these names will be changed within  2 years.

PS. There are an interesting number of other registered trademarks on the name Sunpower too, including Snack Food, Vitamin Supplements, Car Tires, etc.

The search for cool names – literally

Clients often ask me for a cool name. A valid request. Sounds logical at first glance, but then when you start to ponder things you may wonder what makes a name cool? And if it is cool for me, is it cool for you? And it is not very practical trying to run them by Paris Hilton or Miley Cirrus (this week’s queens of coolness) to see if it gets their Cool vote.

And then there are those that literally put cool in their names. Medicool is a very interesting one because they are selling assistance products for those of us with special medical equipment needs. Not normally a very cool subject matter – but why not try to jazz it up a little?

As for the Cool Reader folk, I think they are trying too hard. First time I saw the way they wrote the name of their E(lectronic) Reader, I thought they were using the “deleted expletive” symbol in the middle of their name.  Now I look closer it is probably meant to be a snowflake – hey what do us sunshine state folks know. We think snow is cold and not cool anyway. And if it is that cool, why just one snowflake that unbalances the name and not a matching pair?