Name Awards

Lots of faces smiling at Facebook

So an old naming project warmup exercise was to ask your audience:

• Why is it called Rhode Island if it is not an island?
• Why is it called junk food, when it is not junk and not food?

To which today we can add:

• Why is it called Facebook when it is not a book of faces?

Regardless, Facebook deserves their mega success as they go public this week. My only concern is if they have become the platform of choice for many businesses in place of websites. A clean, simple, almost boring name without any hot logo is the story at Facebook… but not really.. because it is a book of everyone’s personal stories and pictures.

Talking of which – did an interesting sign/name catch your eye? Why not post it on Brighter Naming’s Facebook page with a brief comment and help us build the biggest Fun Name Signs album in the world?

Splish, Splash, Splunk

When a company named Splunk goes public on the stock exchange, you have to admire them for their spunk and of course, wonder what they do. As it turns out, they are a backroom IT tools company for exploring super big corporate datasets.

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.

I’m curious what they are teaching at Bay Area colleges nowadays!

Recently I saw a posting where the writer wanted to endorse the curios.me website, but couldn’t find it for a while as he naturally assumed it was curious.me. Especially since it is a website for curious college people to ask and share questions and information. Did you read it that way at first too? Or did you see it offhand as either a spelling mistake or the site to find your curios from the little country of Montenegro (for which the .me top level domain was originally reserved).

Might be fun to see what happens to all these folks that have been reselling domains from small countries when more high level domains are released next year. For starters, what if .curios becomes a top level domain?

In the meantime, looks like this is another college crazy mixup by people who don’t understand the complexity of marketing, though it is not as bad as their colleagues with the Doostang site – see what the Name Critic rated that one! On the other hand, Doostang has been able to register it as a federal trademark.

Travelocity is a great name with an even better character

Travelocity is a great example of three in one naming, as I call it. The name has 3 clearly obvious roots, all of which pertain to the core message and business:  Travel, Velocity and City. More than that, it is very much a coined name, but the English roots are so obvious it will not immediately scare off all those stuck-in-the-muds who don’t like coined names for anything. As a result, Travelocity also has the power of an easily protectable trademark worldwide.

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.

The stupidity of descriptive names.

Little companies often use very descriptive names, instead of properly naming themselves and using taglines, name tails, or other marcom tactics to position themselves.

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.

Fnuky is a funky name for an ad agency.

According to Business Week magazine, the Australian Fnuky ad agency is really changing the rules on office decor in addition to offering a whole different kind of ad service to their clients. But no one seems to be able to explain to me where they got the name Fnuky. So I conclude it is some kind of Aussie slang or juxtaposition worked up over some Foster’s Lager at a South Australian barbie some night.

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).

Google Wallet is a wimpy retread of a name

Being passionate about names means that sometimes big company decisions make my blood boil…  as I have strong emotional reactions to stupidity and bureaucracy. And Google Wallet has definitely got me wondering what the heck were they thinking?

Are they all so young and naive at Google on this project that they don’t know Microsoft and others have already tried and failed with the Wallet name? Plus Google, on their own homepage for it, can’t decide whether it is written with a capital W or not. What on earth is that scooby do scribble logo all about?

But far worse, a wallet is something you store cash and credit cards in. You don’t pay with your wallet. And if you live outside the USA and are a lady, you don’t even own a wallet. Elsewhere ladies keep their money in their purse, which they then keep in their handbags. I wonder if Google programming geeks know the power women have shopping. Why cut them out from the get go?

Of course, this is an effort to fix a problem they have had since its inception with Google Checkout. What a dumb restrictive name that is. Didn’t even their basic market research tell them that Paypal is used for so much more than checking out? In fact it has become a major money transfer and online services payment system, in many cases without there being a shopping cart checkout procedure involved at all.

Oh well, when Paypal was young and poor and every dollar counted, they spent a few thousand on a naming consultant and now have this powerful brand name. At the time they were not owned by the big corporate eBay, which was probably to their advantage. They had to brand and position themselves correctly. And they didn’t have the big egos like Googleites who know it all.. but then make stupid mistakes and think they are invincible. No wonder so many products at Google don’t take off and 95% or more of revenue is still from their basic search ad revenues.

PS Wallets are from the pilgrims days.. to carry your coins in. Modern payment systems will be all electronic or smart card based… no leather needed. Maybe they can call it Google Silver, since they already have Google Chrome!

PPS Not quite as bad a name as Google+ though. See what the naming critic had to say about that over at Brighter Naming.

Has Las Vegas run out of names?

Our rotten name of the week goes to THEhotel in Las Vegas. What happened? Did they run out of names or just think it would be cute? Sure the main hotel is called Mandalay Bay which conjures up all sorts of pleasant images, not to mention a unique, brandable trademark. And their other associated hotel is the Four Seasons (probably part of the other Four Seasons around the world.. or else also a boring old name).

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.

Everyones going Wavii.. well not quite yet, except early movers

What do you think of this name style? It allowed us to create a short sweet name that is original and unique. Now we see more about what the client is using Wavii for, it seems to fit even better. You too can follow waves of information by becoming one of their beta users at www.wavii.com.

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.

Kodak – what a great name, but a tough style today

From a language point of view, the name Kodak has no meaning. It is simply an abstract coined word. Of course, from a branding point of view it is short hand for one of the former biggest brands in photography. In a sad turn of events, Kodak yesterday filed for bankruptcy protection. For sure, the name is not the problem, though trying to get companies to adopt names like Kodak nowadays is a tough sell.

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.