Name Awards

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.

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.

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.

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.