07.03.08
Posted in Branding, Language Fun, Rotten Names, International at 10:25 am by Athol
Quixtar is currently running a broad awareness campaign to associate themselves with their real Amway Brand. But many people (including me) thought that Amway somehow became Quixtar to get rid of some of the negative brand baggage of the old Amway name, especially when they went online. So then the question that begged to be answered was if you were going to tar yourself with a brush of a different color, why not keep it very separate and distinct?
Turns out that Quixtar actually was a separate e-initiative originally kept at arms length from Amway - presumably while they learned and saw how it affected their independent business operators and their traditional MLM marketing programs. Of course, it took off like a rocket and has now been fully embraced (if I read their official releases properly), so they want to fold it back in and next year call everything Amway Global. A strange, slow- change strategy that makes my head spin… why advertise who you are now if soon you won’t be?
Could it be that a big agency is calling the shots, and they make more money if it is dragged out to the max? Or does it take the IT guys that long to do the integration?
But in the meantime, those clever names where there is a play on the English language often backfire, especially for the foreigners, the young and the half educated. Especially when you let your graphics designer break the word so it does look like Quix Tar. Don’t blame me if some people miss the implied Star sound.
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06.05.08
Posted in Branding, Language Fun at 8:55 am by Athol
In this modern world of super brands, isn’t it amazing how we take any name or logo for granted once it has been properly seared into our gray matter? My first award has to go to the relatively younger brand of Starbucks. I say the name, you smell the coffee. You walk down the street, you can feel the pull just from the decor. But what about that mermaid? What is she doing in the logo? Is she the star who gets paid the big bucks?
And then there is the old classic American Express card. A symbol of American wealth and stature for many years - personified by a Roman Gladiator! 
My history isn’t very good though I do know the Romans traveled a lot and conquered many lands. But not the Americas. How come it is not the Roman Express card? Has this Roman become one of us, just like Ellen Degeneres calls him “one of my people” in her commercial?
Now what logo are you going to use with your new company name?
P.S. Know any other great examples?
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05.14.08
Posted in Language Fun, Rotten Names at 3:08 pm by Athol
There is plenty of places for successful abstract names in branding. But to have an abstract name that you can barely pronounce and worse, is very, very difficult to read in most fonts and almost anyone’s handwriting, that is really stupid.
No wonder EBay is suing Craigslist! Their own classified offering might even work if it just had a name intelligible to western ears, especially one with as much recognition as Craigslist (even though Craig himself didn’t want this name to stay on the door…. luckily wiser heads prevailed).
So we know that Ebay copied the classified ad idea from Craigslist, and the dots in the logo from Google, but we are not sure from which monkey-speak they copied the name. (We do not intentionally mean to offend Japanese character names here… just this name is not for the Japanese market). But they ended up with a very difficult name to type and read, let alone relate to.
Why couldn’t they just copy themselves and call me to sell them the domain KeenBay.com? At least you can read and spell and say it.. even on a quickly scribbled note.
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05.02.08
Posted in Branding, Education, Language Fun at 2:43 pm by Athol
Reading blogs and sharing notes about names is fun for many, but it is also nice to get together and share stories and ideas over breakfast sometimes. I spoke up once too often at some of the Business Marketing Association’s round table breakfasts, so now I am personally the speaker next week (May 7th) 
in Palo Alto. Let’s have some fun. Business doesn’t have to be boring. When the emotions flow the creativity does too.
Here is the link to sign up. No payment till you show up.. but mostly you just have to pay for what you eat. Bring a story or question to share. Maybe your name idea will win an award.
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04.18.08
Posted in Language Fun, Name Origins at 7:26 am by Athol
One of the fun parts of naming is discovering new roots and meanings every day. I must have been asleep at the wheel to not know that Nevada is from the Spanish word “snowfall”.
There is snow in the mountains and the north, but enough to name the state after it? Wow. Imagine we name some winter ski parkas (that are good in snowy weather) Nevada. People will surely not get it and assume we lost all our naming marbles in the casino.
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03.03.08
Posted in Language Fun, Great Names at 3:31 pm by Athol
Some names are just plain fun. No one knows what they mean or where they came from, but they bring a sense of warmth to our hearts and a smile to our faces when we hear them. And every year about now in the middle of ice hockey season, I want to run out and hug a Zamboni!
Sure I can get all analytical and research it and find that these crazy lovable machines are simply named after their founder, but why spoil the simple things in life. A Zamboni is a Zamboni and that is that. After all, not a lot of industrial equipment has inspired its own fan sites (e.g. www.dochertyfamily.com/zamboni.htm for one) or allowed its owners to make it part of their marketing and brand experience for the fans.
Our local San Jose Sharks do it as well as anybody, as you can in this picture of one of their Zamboni’s soaking up some rays for a change. Both Zamboni and the San Jose Sharks deserve some sort of marketing awards for this!
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02.24.08
Posted in Future Names, Language Fun at 9:39 am by Athol
I suppose it has become more than just a trend.. maybe even a wave .. all these new, very short, strangely spelled Web 2.0 names. On one hand we had the very common name backlash after the .com bust, resulting in names like FaceBook, YouTube and MySpace (which I categorize as Web 1.5 names). But now people are pushing the envelope again though they seem too scared to pick a word with proper English constructs.
Of course, this trend is also driven by the SMS generation, so spelling is not of paramount concern to them, as long as it is short and decipherable and cool to their peers.
Here are some examples from the recent Silicon Valley latest quarter venture funding report: Vuze, SezWho, Tumri, YuMe, SoonR, Taoit, Zoove, Qwaq, Jangl, Fliqz and Ribbit.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, your professional venture capitalists invested over a million dollars on average in each of these strange characters from cartoon land!
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12.20.07
Posted in Language Fun at 9:17 pm by Athol
Every week as a professional namer I see people struggle when they can’t get names that are very descriptive of
their products or services. Yet so few famous brand names are .. so for Xmas fun, lets award some name prizes to names that would have rather different connotations if taken literally.
For examp
le, Safeway is a great name for a condom company, StarBucks is good for the name of a bank in Hollywood, Microsoft is very fine bathroom tissue, and Oracle could be th
e Toastmaster’s Club or local church.
Why don’t you think of some more and suggest them, especially after a trip to shop for Xmas.
P.S. Shouldn’t FritoLay be the name of fresh eggs? Look at the logo too!
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10.28.07
Posted in Language Fun at 7:31 am by Athol
All Scrabble and Wheel of Fortune fans know the value of a vowel. Now it seems like all the e-businesses have snapped up the “e”’s. We know Apple has used a lot of “i’s and someone somewhere is hoarding the “o”s too.
How else do you explain popular new names like Flickr, Razr, Rokr, Rizr, Loopt (pronounced looped)? Of course, we don’t need those vowels - they were silent anyway. Everyone still knows how to pronounce these names… and so the English language continues to evolve. 
But speaking of letters not needed, so often I type in Flikr instead of Flickr or Flicker. Perhaps there is too much flickering going on for the Yahooligans… you’d think they would make these other spellings (for Germanic people and those who know good English respectively) point as well to Flickr! Heck, Yahoo is now a top level domain registrar.. does someone have to explain forwarding to them?
PS Motorola probably got tired of paying the original Razor for the name rights. We note with interest that the proper names are now Motorazr, Motorokr, Motorizr, etc.
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10.11.07
Posted in Language Fun, Great Names at 4:04 pm by Athol
I have previously written posts about names that cut through the noise, but in the domain name registration space there is one that stands head and shoulders above the crowd. Here are some of the boring sounding ones:
Register.com
Network Solutions.com
Register Fly (that turned out to be a bit of a Fly by night)
RegNow
Registration Technologies
Domain Name
…and 50+ others starting with the word Domain!
And then there is GoDaddy! I have seen staid business people literally do a double-take when this name is mentioned, either because of the shock of the name for a very serious and important business, or because they have seen some of GoDaddy’s fun marketing campaigns.. and don’t realize it is a business site, not a consumer one.
This name obviously did not come from the boardroom. What magic one man can do (Bob Parsons), with the right personality… even though he is backed up by a staff of thousands, all of whom understand the concept of customer service - with a smile. Go Daddy Go - even if you are already number one!
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