Name Awards

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?)

Yosemite – beautiful name for a beautiful park

Recent moon rainbow over lower Yosemite Falls. Full image at Sensory Escapes.

Over 4 million people a year have the special privilege of visiting Yosemite National Park, one of the great natural wonders of the world. When people ask about the name, they are usually given a quick “it’s an Indian tribe” or “it’s an Indian word” answer. But isn’t it interesting how we accept native american words into our vocabulary, even though they are not built on classical European structures, syllables or phonemes?

Because of the way all the falls in the park are running this year.. with sudden high temperatures melting the almost record snow pack, I have seen many national and local stories about the park. But I hear no one making the mistakes we made as kids when we called it Yo se mite. Only when a college colleague returned from a trip there did we learn it was Yo Sem atee. (OK I went to college on the other side of the globe!).

But who owns the name and trademark? Can anyone name anything Yosemite? As it turns out, lots of people. As of today there are 119 entries in the US Fed TM register that include the name Yosemite in their trademark filing, not the least of which is the Yosemite Conservancy which suddenly has a bunch of filings. Other trademarks are held by some of the concessions. And some seem to be unrelated:  Bedding? Cigarettes? Lager? Telescopes?

Oh well.. almost a shame the National Parks Board did not establish early on who could or could not use the name. But then, a hundreds of years ago, they were pulling off miracles just to get the park lands preserved, for which we should all feel grateful today.

Hollywood actors that live up to their own original names

I’ve been invited to be a guest blogger over at The Scribe’s Desk one of these days – even though that is the happening movie website and I am a real laggard when it comes to modern movies. But in the meantime I read about Forest Whitaker turning 50 and how Forest  is his real name. He deserves a name award for uniqueness and for living up to the name rather than changing it as is so common in Hollywood.  Not only is he a vegetarian, he once told an interviewer, “I try to be like a forest: revitalizing and constantly growing”.

But that is only half the story. Talk about being a green family! What choice do his kids have when they are named Sonnet, True, Ocean and Autumn? This is a lot more than just paying lip service to your ideals.

Now I am much more interested in seeing his next movie.

Juice in the City juices up coupons for moms.

I do like studying names that are part of some genre, or connected or similar companies. I especially enjoy it when the USA Today newspaper helps me out and runs a story on a current trend. Well such is their recent story on companies that are shooting to compete or expand upon the presently very hot Groupon phenomenon.

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!

Your brand is the most powerful SEO factor

In the rush to win the search engine wars, it seems to me so many people are missing the old basics. After all, when we walk into a store and are confused by all the generic offerings, what are we likely to buy? A known brandname item of course. My book Brighter Branding: Best practices for the smaller businesses, recently released in print version, is designed to help the new businesses as well as smaller ones understand the value of consistency (and not money) in building their brand.

A great recent example of this was when I started looking online for artist painting supplies – an area I know very little about incidentally. Just when I was about to pull my hair out I saw the names and logos for Dick Blick and Utrecht. Somewhere long ago those names were branded on the back of my brain. Now I can shop in peace and compare these two only. I trust them both and don’t even want to hear about better deals at other places. Sorry folks.. but I am human too.

This doesn’t mean that leaders and brandnames in a given field can abdicate on properly setting up and registering their websites and blogs and social media. But it does show that a lot of SEO practitioners are not properly advising their clients as they are so obsessed with Google Analytics and dashboard scores etc., that they are ignoring branding.  Your search engine optimization has to take into account so much more than special words and layouts on your website. In fact, in the next version of my own eBook Brighter SEO: Organic search engine optimization I might even go back and pump up the branding section or offer the two books mentioned here as a paired deal.

Mr Ballmer, Please don’t change Skype name

Dear Mr Steve Ballmer,

Congratulations on your purchase of Skype by Microsoft. It never made much sense for other companies, but I think you can easily monetize it without offending Skype’s very loyal and dedicated following. Heck, even I woudn’t mind seeing some small ads in the Skype control panel or next to the video. Anything to keep the basic service free.

Techies say it is old technology… and peer to peer is going away.  I say where else can I find such a handy tool that really works… and has 23million users online as I write this?

But one thing that is not in the Microsoft style is the name Skype. Suffice to say that many of us naming and branding professionals have written before about what a great name it really is. Please don’t change it to Microsoft Office Communications King (MOCK) or anything like that. In fact, please, please don’t change it at all.