This has been a growing problem for some time now, and it appears Splunk has moved to the head of the pack in addressing these problems. Google and others have had some half hearted attempts before, but now it shows that a real concentrated set of special tools are needed.

But why such a friendly name as Splunk?  Almost sounds like summer and the pool. On the other hand, why not? Short, sweet and simple it cuts through the noise, is very memorable, and even has a good story behind it. How do I know? Because they tell the story on their website – smart as they are. See sidebar here and enjoy, even though their graphics logo is as plain as sawdust.

While their three star logo is a little bland, it too is a registered trademark. And it sure is hard to come up with any unique icon nowadays for a travel firm.

But their little roaming gnome character is sheer genius. Talk about putting a face on a service. One you don’t have to pay royalties too. One so popular it has its own online shop. One that plays its own starring role in a popular TV series: In at least one episode of each season of The Amazing Race competitors have to find a gnome and take it along to the next stop.

What better way to market and promote your service? What a clever way to do product placement right in a major series when you are an invisible service company that has no product! Yes, we hear the leg winners getting prizes compliments of Travelocity. But our heart reacts to the little gnome and makes us believe we will have support with us wherever we travel the world – a very, very important factor for most of us discount shoppers.

Travelocity  is thus awarded our top 3 star gold award for naming and branding.

This leads to two big problems: (1) They can’t get a trademark as they are generic, and (2) They can’t be found on the internet because we drown in results from Google and Bing when we search on their name.

And often it leads to a third problem too – when the company grows up it outgrows its own name, just when you want to start building a broader brand without ignoring your existing brand equity. Look at the logo statement here from Plastic Engineering (a nice generic)!  They do metals! Bet you never would have guessed that from their name.

Meanwhile the US Federal Trade Commission that was brought into the debate by the US Ad Council, now is only crying that it will make it harder for them to catch the bad guys. Well isn’t that the case everyday that the internet grows?

And I don’t notice the French, German or Russian, not to mention the Asian and Arabic Ad Councils, complaining because they might finally be able to properly handle the correct names of their valid companies with the proper spellings.. even if they use more than the English character set alphabet.

As for the often-touted, but even stupider idea, that it will cost the big brands a lot of money to claim all their domains, who are you really crying for?  Coca Cola could probably afford the $5,000 or so. Or they might just do what most companies are doing right now – ignore all the other domains.

For example, does your company use a telephone? Do your execs travel? Are there professional consultants in your company? Do you have an office in Barcelona? Do you have a US presence? Do you have job vacancies? Do you supply a lot of information to your clients? Why then have you not yet claimed your .tel, .travel, .pro, .cat, .us, .jobs and .info domain names already? Of course, you probably have the .xxx domain to stop your execs getting caught with their pants down!  All of these have been out for a while and most will take years to catch on. So the real action for new domains is going to be in foreign lands and might just be a big yawn stateside.

Of course, it doesn’t really matter.  What matters is that they are a unique company and they took the trouble to find themselves a unique name.  Always makes me wonder why so few creative agencies have creative names? (I may even be guilty of this myself with this blog and with my own company names).

Which got me to thinking about their name. What if I wanted to compete with them and start a separate business certification service? Could we then be Best Business Bureau? Not likely.. sounds awkward and may even trigger a law suit as being “confusingly similar”. So this is a name that has both first mover advantage and is also a good blocking move.

But if you run into a situation like this, do not despair. The trick is to just go a completely different way. In fact, in many areas now a better certification is to be a Diamond Certified Business.

Plus we have all heard enough insults about someone being a fat cow, so why not give it a friendly, functional name like Skinny Cow. Then dress it up with a friendly cow with a small waist being confirmed by the tape measure, and you finally have a product that can cut through much of the noise of the traditional sugary brands in the candy aisle.  Thank you Nestle.

But I don’t want to deal with the confusion of booking a hotel, or taking a taxi, or telling my friends I am staying in THEhotel and then having to explain it is not a hotel, but THEhotel. Ouch all the way.  Why not the Mandalay Peninsula, as one simple example, that deftly helps spread the brand warmth?

And this blog has a picture with it just so you know I am not kidding! I sure pity the marketing folks and interior designers. How do you not make it feel live every other generic hotel anyone ever stayed in – that are all an ugly forgettable blur today.

Earlier this week they got a great Wave from Google’s Marissa Mayer as reported on The Brand Channel. Endorsements don’t come much better than that.

This is probably justified though. If I took such a name to a team of executives, assuming they were from some other planet and had never heard the name before, the men would say “Ah no.. reminds me of Kodiak bears or something” and the ladies would say “reminds me of a tampon brand.” The other reason not to adopt abstract names is the fact they can take years to promote and brand through a consumer channel unless you have a megahit product like Google.

From a linguistics standpoint though, Kodak is an ideal name. It starts and ends with the same sticky consonant – K. It is two syllables with the emphasis on the second. It has a heavy d in the middle imparting strength. And it is easy to spell and say in many different languages. Plus, being very unique at its inception, it was completely trademark clear worldwide.