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.

So when I see coffee ads while I am watching online video, my cognitive recognition skills kick in. First time or two I saw the Keurig ads I watched them carefully but couldn’t remember the brand. Then I watched more carefully and wrote it down. Today as I sit to write this I discover I can’t find Keuric’s website, but luckily Google helps me out and corrects my spelling (and thanks McAfee for not letting me surf to the infected keuric.com site).

If a professional brand meister of many years standing, when consciously trying, cannot remember your name, then I think you have a problem. Not only is the name difficult to say and remember for English speakers, it just provides us with no associations or meanings. No wonder they have to spend so much money on marketing. What a shame. And they probably have a good product too. Now they need a cure for Keurig.

Why? Why can’t people leave well enough alone? Or control their ad agency instead of paying them for updating and fixing something that isn’t broken. Sure the agency has to do something to get paid. But breaking the brand should not be it.

Now it is 24 hours later and I finally go to the Onstar.com website and look it up.  Guess what..  FMV stands for For My Vehicle. Really? No go on? What was I going to use it for? My cat? Wasn’t that a vehicle in every picture in every ad. Is someone else usurping OnStar for something else? Their private satellite perhaps?

Grrr.  What a big error. What a waste of brand brain time. F…Moth.. of V…

Then they go name it Venza. What is that? And their direct competitor has the hot selling Versa! Even Wikipedia has a note: Not to be confused with Toyota Avanza.

All I know is that it feels very pedantic and something that got lost in committee. Will go down well in Africa though, especially with the Venda tribal people. Or are they expecting the Italians to think they are replacing the iconic Vespa line?

They featured Juice in the City and their focus on moms and the mom market – probably the biggest market in my humble opinion – of people who more often turn to coupons out of necessity rather than desire. Of course, any of the others could target moms as well, especially if they had a  name that more implied moms rather than one implied teenagers flirting in the city. And what about all the country folks?

USA Today says BuyWithMe, Tippr, CrowdSavings, Yipit, Lashou, CatchofTheDay, Scoopon (love this name) and Plum District, among others, have also received funding. Seems like someone sent the investors a coupon themselves! Catch of the Day sounds kind of fishy to me, and I wonder if former VP Al Gore knows what his wife Tipper is up to? Maybe he should Lashou her!

You know Smith Barney. They were famous for their ad slogan: “We make money the old fashioned way.” Sure, like trading billions of suspicious derivatives, banking big bonuses, then running for cover and bail-out funds and mergers. I remember the old way, but I digress.

Why can’t Morgan Stanley just be Morgan Stanley? Why do they need a tail-end moniker? When they have to have so many options and shop the list around for opinions, you can be sure none of them are strong and jumping out. And it doesn’t matter which one they pick, no one will use it. Surely from the CEO on down, they will answer the phone and say they work for Morgan Stanley. So why not call a spade a spade? Does such a worldwide powerhouse brand need  a positioning descriptor?

Sure they are trying to cast themselves in a new light. Well short and sweet and clean and simple, like the logo they are already using, seems like enough for me. Now let them go out and earn their stripes, instead of paying agencies for new long names that are like a tale on a donkey – only good for swatting flies.

If they want to be a global wealth preservation company, let them prove it. And if they have a soft heart and help some poverty stricken poor country that has no wealth along the way too, all power to them. And some of the other tails they are considering, like Private Wealth Advisors, makes it sound like they only handle rich individuals, and not companies or countries. Makes me thing that maybe this tail is a fake just to fill up the voting roster. Have they forgotten that their name is just shorthand for their brand promise after all?

Enough said. I vote for Morgan Stanley. Period.

What happened? Are your linguists over the top Ph.D’s that have lost touch with the real world? Or are they purposefully trying to be weird and awkward?

This name bothers me, a humble, practical, professional namer who has been fascinated by the power (or destructive power) of names since I was a teenager. I had to even write it down to remember it.. and I am someone who eats, sleeps and breathes naming. What’s more, they claim to help companies engage in branding. Engage? When you can’t spell or pronounce the name?

In fact the name bothers me so much I am going to take part of President’s Day off  tomorrow to do a full analysis for the name critic on Brighter Naming.

Other things being equal, I  (and many other consumers) might not even taste this beer simply because we can’t pronounce the name. On the other hand, when given the only alternative choice in a sea of sameness, many of us change our mind…regardless of the name. Hurts for a naming guy to say that….but such is reality and once or twice a year I have to get it off my chest.

We wish them well standing up to Anheuser Busch in their own stadium in their own home town. Shows how a good product with energetic marketing can make it anywhere…. and they all remember the product as the one with the weird name.

Apart from unknown root word meanings, this rotten name has poor alliteration, forcing you to pronounce it as two words, thereby losing all the magic of the shortness of two syllables. When you are naming payment systems that are smooth and easy to use on the go, you need a name that is smooth too.

And if you are stuck with an awkward name, spend some money on a graphics designer who gives you a logo with some real class and pizzaz……. not just another case of boring lower case-itis.

Oh well, back to our old friends at Paypal or Quickbooks.