Name Awards

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.

Miserware breaks barrier with Granola product and name

When I am reading about a computer science professor and discover he has found a way for software to be much smarter at power management, I am not surprised. The fact he calls his company Miserware I think is a natural and applicable name and move on. Then I discover he calls the PC version Granola and I am pulled up fast. Did I hear right?

A break through free software program that is saving the world a lot of electricity and it is called Granola? I can hear the jingle now: “Granola isn’t just for breakfast anymore.” But since a very reputable magazine, BusinessWeek, first alerted me to this name and called it a brandname, I believed it to be real. And once I looked it up on miserware.com which flipped me over to grano.la (yes a website using the Laos country domain, not LA city.. at least not yet) the plot grew deeper. I am sure there is a play on the name somehow, perhaps from granularity. While I am just guessing here I do think that is more likely than someone looking at his breakfast dish or lunch box and going Aha!

And since Businessweek called it a brandname, I had to check and see if it was a registered trademark. Well this turned into a quick lesson on how hard it can be to look up certain names on the USPTO.gov website if you don’t know what you are doing. The first trademark search box I got to, I typed in granola of course.. and got 3076 hits to be precise! Wow. Backup.. let us rather narrow search to a name or partial name in the software category (9) and see what happens. I find an expired trademark for Granola Disk, and nothing else.

Oh well, with such an unusual name and prolific download rate, I suppose no one is going to copy your unique product name, so why pay the small trademark registration fee? Certainly in the food category it is a generic word and therefore not trademarkable, but in software it is unique and I really wanted to properly credit it with the Circle R brand – ®.

P.S. Also a great example of how a product name logo does not have to be boring.

Humor and Wall Street Journal endorsement

Thanks to the Wall Street Journal for this little bit of sunshine in the middle of all their dire news earlier this week. Sure is nice to see a change of style from them.

Is this tongue-in-cheek cartoon an unofficial endorsement from the financial media powerhouse that name changes actually are effective?

Others have claimed to have branded milk with their Got Milk campaign, to which I respond they only raised the awareness of milk. I defy you to recite what brand of milk you prefer. But when it comes to sports drinks and bottled water, the brand wars rage with passion. Isn’t it amazing what strong feelings we have for some flavored waters thanks to the miracle of marketing?

Silicon Valley Mixer – the one and only

It almost seems strange to talk about a Silicon Valley Mixer, given that there are so many each week in the valley. In fact, Workit.com has become a great business service just keeping track of what is going on in the greater San Francisco Bay Area each week. And so when Derinda Gaumond (founder of Workit) invites you to the 8th Annual Silicon Valley Mixer you know this is the original and best one. Apart from being a great meeting and networking event by itself, it is also the annual kickoff to all the other Xmas functions.

Silicon Valley Code Camp has been and gone. The programmers are back on their keyboards. Now the business and marketing people can safely show their heads at this function.  Come network at the Mixer hosted by the best tech networker in the Bay Area.

Disclosure: My company is a sponsor and exhibitor again this year. Meet me there. If you visit their site you can see me in the picture… just off center in rumpled black leather jacket but smooth wavy white hair:)

Was Apple the most expensive name to preserve California?

In the rush to eulogize Steve Jobs, some articles are not portraying the correct origins of the Apple name, nor are they pointing out the massive legal mistake they made that cost the company millions.

The company was NOT named after the Beatles record company. I believe this is the true story: Steve Jobs simply told his fledgling team one day in the Bay Area that they needed a new name for the company. And in frustration with their lack of suggestions, he said if they didn’t come up with a name by five o’clock, he was going to name it Apple. And so it came to be.

But later as they grew and registered their trademark around the world, Apple Computers Inc (as they used to be) signed a bilateral agreement with Apple Records Ltd (of the Beatles) that Apple Computers would never make music and Apple Records, in turn, would never make computers. This was all fine and good until Apple unveiled the Mac line of computers, with their built-in sound and music capabilities. Luckily by then the Mac was selling well and the company was very wealthy, because when Apple Records sued them, the case eventually ended up in British High Court and Apple Computers lost to the tune of approximately $46 million! I still remember the positive spin they put on it for their shareholders: they had been expecting to have to pay more, and secondly, they were insured.

Well the insurance company refused to pay up and it went to court. And Apple Computers lost again, so it cost them about $10 million more when all the legal costs were added up. For a grand total of about $56 million – to legally keep their own name! WOW. Let this be an expensive lesson for all company founders who would like to name their company without checking trademarks properly.

PS As for the logo, which used to have kiddy candy stripes on it I don’t think there was a bite taken out of the Apple because of some connection to Adam and Eve. I heard (but may be wrong) that it was done to make it clearer that the logo really was in the shape of an Apple, and nothing else.

When you are naming a series of Nordic longboats…

Viking River Cruises is introducing a whole new series of long ships in Europe. They sure look like they will take up at least two jetties each time they dock, plus could get out of kilter going through some bridge arches and wrap themselves around one of the pylons.

But I am only criticizing because I can’t get away for a trip in short order. Must say I am impressed with how they are using Facebook too. One of the better consumer marketing efforts. Of course I liked the ship christening ceremony.

And, as for the names of the new long boats: Viking Embla, Viking Aegir, Viking Freya, Viking Idun, Viking Njord, Viking Odin. Don’t worry, after one cruise and some wine from their own Viking winery, your ship’s name will roll off the tongue and never be forgotten.

Plus these names really add a touch of Nordic class and separate the boats from their sister Princess Cruises with their English party names.

Magnum is a strong name for a strong taste of chocolate

I am not sure how I missed it growing up, but now I discover Magnum chocolate and ice cream has been around for a while. And  you thought Magnum was a gun, right? Shows how broad thinking can lead to great cross over names.

But you still have to get the word out. There current ads in the form of movie trailers are brilliant. Now if only I knew where to buy some!

Virgin America is a breath of fresh airline

Imagine the fun you could have explaining the name Virgin America for a new airline if your audience did not know the history of Virgin Airlines.  Regardless, this is a great example of how a name influences the brand personality. Every step they take is somehow subtly different to their competitors.

From using ad pictures like the one here, to having an appropriate tagline: A breath of fresh airline they always stand out from the crowd. What great brand value is that? And it all started with the name.

Tags: brandnames, slogans, taglines

Drobo is a great new name… abbreviations can be winners

Data Robotics was a practical name, if somewhat long in the tooth namewise. But this week we offer our name of the week award to them for picking their already used abbreviation of Drobo as the product line name as well as the new company name.  Not Dr Obo, not DatRob, not Datarob, not dRobotics…. just simply Drobo.

So now Drobo can go go… not that they appear to need much help from us.. they are already zooming along in the small business add-on storage marketplace.

Kudus to the Norwegian Industrial Property Office

As professional namers we are always searching the trademark directories of the world, especially as we do more and more international work. But some countries still have bureaucrats in the way to “help” with your searches. What that means is you have to pay them and trust your search to them..  and maybe they are no better than you. In fact, we are often quicker and more efficient because by the time we get to some of the smaller countries we already know a lot about the names surrounding our potential trademark of the day.

So I was pleasantly surprised recently to  find we can now get to the Norwegian trademarks ourselves – directly and free without registration. Not only that, they offer up their information in good English as well as Norwegian! Many thanks.

And as an interesting bonus, they actually list how many new patent and trademark filings they have handled this year. As of this writing, it is 7780 trademarks.  Wow.. that is a 1000 a month run rate and Norway is just a smaller country of the world.

PS Now when will India outsource their IT development and get a database online? (or even offline?)