Name Awards

Talking of long names: Silicon Valley Code Camp returns

Sometimes a function just gets the right name from the outset. Such is the magic of Silicon Valley Code Camp. Nowhere else would a code camp be so appropriate. After all, where else would so many propeller head geeks (as I call them because I was one) get together for a whole weekend and take over a whole junior college just to share information about the latest and greatest in software? Not a corporate function. Just some keen volunteers who now have some big corporate sponsors so even the pizza and sandwiches are free.

Peter Kellner and his team do a great job of this and close to 2000 attendees are expected this year to partake in the 150 or so sessions. All the news is just spread by blogs and word of mouth.

Since I was Peter’s tech support friend over 25 years ago, I was one of the first marketing guys ever to present at the camp. This year I will have two sessions: From Code to Product to Market to Company where I help software types understand what it takes to transform some code into a business, and Pragmatic Naming for Product Managers where we help teach the basics of naming in a very crowded trademark category.

Please join us or follow along online.

Not all great names are short and sweet

I have recently had a chance to discuss what makes a good name with a number of writers, in addition to my usual discussions with clients, and an interesting fact comes to life: Not all great names are short and sweet.  We have a top 10 list of ideal factors for your new company, product or brand name, and these points are mirrored more or less on many other linguists and branding lists.

But what about National Geographic? Or The Smithsonian Institute? Or Architectural Digest? Or Wikipedia? For most of these you couldn’t find a better name. And even though many people struggle to spell encyclopaedia, I can’t imagine there is a better name for Wikipedia, even though most people don’t know what a Wiki is or what the Hawaiian word means. Hint: Look it up in Wikipedia – one of the most trusted sources on the internet.

So we must conclude that for every rule about a great name, there is an exception. And, as usual, nothing matters if the boss doesn’t like the name anyway.

UPDATE: Since we no longer spell encyclopedia as encyclopaedia, care needs to be taken with the root tail here, as it is also often used for pediatric or even pedophile names. If it wasn’t better know, Wikipedia could be a list of pedophiles or a list of kid’s problems.

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.

Venza is a great car with a rotten name

If Toyota’s usual US based naming agency came up with this name, then I apologize in advance and clearly need educating on something. What a stylish new cross over vehicle… really moves Toyota out of the boring box category.

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?

Is LawPivot pronounced “Law Pee Vo”?

Earlier this week a friendly young gentleman called me to see if our company needed occasional legal services, or at least the chance to post some questions to a large panel of lawyers. When he introduced his company I couldn’t catch the name.. but it sounded a lot like Law Penis to me.

I was so shocked, I asked him specifically what was the company name, and he slowly said “Law Pee Vo“. If Ihadn’t been in a good mood, I probably would have been pee’d off. But instead, 10 minutes later I called him back. Got the answering service which at first didn’t know which of their many clients had been calling me. But I persuaded the well-spoken young lady to work down the list of her clients with Law at the beginning.

That is when I discovered a company called Law Pivot was actually using telemarketers (on shore incidentally) that were badly mangling their name! I also discovered that they were probably using this marketing tactic because they are not showing up on the first 25 pages of a Google search for Ask a Lawyer a question.  What a pity for an apparently good service that has had some big PR coverage in the past.

Many people use any service they prefer. Me, if I can’t get past the name, I move on to another supplier. And I hope this reminds more of you to listen yourself to the verbal branding messages your hired flunkies are putting out….so they don’t pee all over it.

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

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.

Athol Fugard – my accidental namesake

When my mother named me Athol, after a minister who was also an athlete, little did she know that my real namesake would be a very political playwright. Yes, Athol Fugard was honored at the recent Tony Awards with a lifetime achievement recognition. Apart from his work, I always admired how he managed to be such an outspoken critic of Apartheid without actually ending up in jail under that old bad regime. I suppose having a big public stage helped.

Anyway, when my name is known in the USA, it is always a surprise. When it is correctly spelled and pronounced it is usually thanks to Athol Fugard. Now if only I was half the writer that he is. Plus he is also a great actor. Next time your rent the movie Ghandi again, see the role he plays, for example.

The one man play highlight of my life was the night I saw Athol Fugard hold an enrapt audience as a poor, drunken, downtrodden colored man in the first half of the play. All alone on the stage by the way with no props. And then he returned in the second half as a clean well dressed man and told more stories. It took me weeks to get my head around the fact that it was the same actor, and secondly, that anyone could hold such a large audience for so long in his hand. No music, no antics, no dancing. Now that is a powerful story teller.

As for the real roots of the name Athol, see my take on this page of our Brighter Naming website.

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.