Name Awards

Is naming color blind?

I have been collecting a number of company images and signs where the name and the graphics are at odds with one another, and will post a full review shortly. But in the meantime, for some Thanksgiving Day fun, what color would you have made the logo for this company?

What if you were their communications consultant?

Are you antsy for some ittie bittie thing from Etsy?

In the latest Reader’s digest, the Founder of Etsy.com explains how he actually wanted a nonsense word since he planned on creating the brand from scratch. Even so, it is not all of us who watch Italian operas and listen for common phrases. Apparently in Italian etsi means Oh, yes. In Latin, it means although, even if (the article says and if).

From that he derived Etsy, probably because the domain Etsi.com was already tied up by an European Telecom standards body. So it really is not nonsense at all.

Sound a bit cutesy to you? Of course it does… but that is very appropriate for all the hand made arts and crafts vendors that use Etsy as their main online shop site. I might start my Xmas shopping here.. and help the little guys in this economy.

A segway to a great (but not green) company name

Out of the blue today I started thinking about the Segway company and their great marketing of a product and technology that no one needs. And their great marketing starts with a superb name, cool logo and practical tagline.

Only in America could there be so much hype to create demand for a product that was invented simply because they could. After hundreds of years of evolution, the bicycle and tricycle are the epitome of elegance in human powered green transportation. Then Segway arrives and tried to tell us they were going to revolutionize the world - Yes, at their pre launch hype those were the kinds of stories being leaked out. simply because they now had the smarts and technology to help you balance a two wheeled scooter with side by side wheels.

Heck every postman in the country was going to need one. Every sidewalk should be allowed to have them running over grandma’s and crashing on the downhills. After all, they were only $7,000 each. Definitely your rich spoiled kids toy.. popular with adult kids in Silicon Valley so they wouldn’t have to walk to lunch.

But great marketing and a superb name do not make for good business sense. Especially when for less than half the price you can have a similar looking electric tricycle…… practical and sturdy enough for the LAPD and others to use them for street patrol. And we know how to work a tricycle - we learned in kindergarten!

PS All you green eco fans should protest at them claiming to being the leader in personal green transportation… What about the electricity and all the components they use? And they have only made a few thousand at most. Compare that with the millions of bicycles that run on pedal power before you segway to a new paradigm.

Magenn if you can, a new clean technology that works

Well, if you were going to create a company to invent and deploy lighter than air wind turbine generators, what would you call it?  Windy Sky? What if you imagined that these devices could be deployed worldwide, wherever Magellan sailed?  Then maybe you would come up with a unique new name like Magenn.

OK, I can hear you cringing now and saying “I would never name my company with an awkward coined word like that!”. In such a case, I would remind you of all the people who never would of dreamed of naming their company Cisco or Google. But now those are great names, because their shortness and good phonetics, with sticky consonants, are proving to be memorable brand monikers.

I am not smart enough to know if Magenn’s flying wind turbines will really work… but they are fascinating and we wish them well.  And seriously consider them as  a prospect if you are a venture investor. Their embedded tagline does a great job of positioning the technology until such time as they are better known.

Note: We have no connections to this company and have done no business or technology evaluation other than on their company name.

Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth for a name

Usually when two different parties come up with the same name, accidentally or otherwise, they are not in the same town. But that isn’t the case for Horse Tooth Brewing. Fancy trying to start a brewery with the same name as someone across town! Sounds like someone partook of too much of their own brew.

And now they want the public to come up with the new name for them, while the original brewer politely lets them use another infringing name Cache La Porter in the meantime. I think they might be looking too far inside the gift horse’s mouth.

See full story in the Fort Collins News at 9 column.