Eat My Words - The Kitchen Sink

Biggest Mistakes When Choosing a Domain Name/Company Name

As long as I'm on my soap box writing about annoying Naymz (next post), here are some mistakes to avoid when choosing a name for your company and a domain name to go along with it:

1. Don't name your company something just because the domain name is available on GoDaddy for $9.95
2. Don't give up on a great company name if the domain is taken or out of your price range... unless you are a 100% online business (e.g. Amazon, Fandango, Priceline, OpenTable) simply use a modifier (www.___online.com, www.drink_____.com, www.______inc.) - trust us, your customers won't care and they will still be able to find you
   
3. Don't get a domain name that is spelled differently than it sounds Naymz, Takkle)
4. Don't get cute and try to be like Flickr - unless you have a million dollar ad budget, you can't afford to leave out vowels
5. Don't put dots in your name like del.icio.us - it's dated, annoying and impossible to remember where the dots go
6. Don't come up with your name over a bottle of wine

Naymz That Make Us Insane

I was interviewed this week by Inc. Technology on what the biggest mistakes are in choosing a domain name. I wish I had remembered this doozie - Naymz, which is the epitome of everything WRONG with a name... It's seriously spelling-challenged (we'll give it an A+) and beyond annoying. The cutesy spelling is downright offensive to anyone who knows how to spell. The irony is that Naymz is a professional "Reputation Network" site (think LinkedIn wannabe) with a homepage that screams "Put your good name to work." Okay, Naymz how about you put your BAD name out of its misery.

Here are some other recent Head Scratcher submissions to our Name Shame Hall of Fame...

Technorganic (a seriously twisted website with a forced name that tries too hard and doesn't work... the "o" in Techno is silent when you merge it with Organic, so it sounds like Tech Norganic. Next time hire a naming firm... we know a really good one.)

Adayana

Sambazon (they export Acai from Brazil )

Norvax (Insurance Agents - sounds like a vaccine)

Hauppauge Digital

NuCo2

Frebreze

Far 4 (ceramics store)

Keep those bad naymz coming!

 

 

Orange you glad I didn't say banana?

One of the things you should be cognizant of when naming your company or devising your company slogan is not to paint yourself into a corner.  This lesson has been learned by Simply Orange®. When the company was started in 2001, they were just that, Simply Orange® (Juice) with the slogan “100% unfooled around with.”   

This was reinforced by copy on their website saying “…our recipe is simplicity itself: Do not sweeten. Do not concentrate. Do not disturb. Just let oranges be oranges. And let their taste speak for itself.”

Clear enough, right? Well, in April 2003 they changed their slogan to “Simply unfooled around with."  It could be that this change was a nod to a little fooling around they do as evidenced by some added verbiage on their website “ All Simply Orange® varieties are gently pasteurized and loaded with a full day's supply of Vitamin C ." (the gently pasteurized part was not on their website before).  We're all for  heating liquids for the purpose of destroying bacteria, protozoa, molds and yeasts, but it is definitely not 100% unfooled around with. 

Then in February 2006 the slogan disappeared altogether on their homepage.This may have been changed to account for new not orange products  Simply Lemonade™ and Simply Limeade™  which were introduced in March 2006.  These new products have to be fooled around with or you would not be able to drink them (go ahead, bite into a  lemon).  Remember, these are the  Simply Orange® people who are now selling other simple fruits.

In January 2008 they changed the slogan again to “Honestly simple.” and added Simply Grapefruit, and Simply Apple  to their lineup. The also have trademarked Simply Cider, Simply Apple Cider and Simply Refreshing Tea,  meaning they are perhaps simply going to add to their now not so simple menu.

Now there is news that Simply Orange® is augmenting their previously unfooled around with pasteurized orange juice with two new products:  Simply Orange with Mango and Simply Orange with Pineapple, to be introduced in August 2008.  This from the company that told us back in 2001 that  they were going to "let oranges be oranges." 

We guess they are going to have to  change that to "let oranges be oranges except when we put in Mango or Pineapple, then it’s fooled around with, otherwise, you know it’s not fooled around with except for the pasteurizing thing we talked about before."

In summary, here is the progression of slogans:

• 100% unfooled around with.

• Simply unfooled around with.

• Honestly Simple.

Here are some free suggestions for future slogan changes:

• Simple? Not so much.
• It’s really not that Simple anymore.
• Honestly, it used to be simple.
• We should have looked up what Simply meant before we used it.
• We’re not 100% behind the whole Simple thing
• Life used to be simple when we just unfooled around with oranges.
• Too late we found out that nothing rhymes with Orange
• Hey! Look over there!
• Orange of the Species.
• Simply fruit and, um, refreshing ice tea which is not a fruit but sometimes people will put in a slice of lemon, so you know, there is some connection to fruit.

The moral of  the story is to pick a name/slogan that allows your company to breath and that breathes life into your company. All it takes is one call.  Now , that’s simple.

 

Raw Modesy, Unharmed Donkeys, Con Men, and other strange naming firm anagrams

One of our favorite websites for wordplay is the Internet Anagram Server. Give it a whirl and see what your name spells when you jumble the letters. (For instance, "Alexandra Watkins" = "An Award In Sex Talk" and "Drink A Sealant Wax.")  We ran the name "Eat My Words" through and here's what we found... Eat My Words =
Meaty Words
Sweaty Dorm
Raw Modesty
Two’s Dreamy
Draw My Toes
Steady Worm
Tawdry Some
Wet Army Sod
Do Sew My Rat
Rowdy Meats
Wordy Teams
Steamy Word
Drowsy Meat
To Wry Dames
Eat My Sword
Store My Wad

Of course we can't just embarrass ourselves. Here are some anagrams of some of our favorite naming firms:
The Naming Company = Nymphomaniac Gent
A Hundred Monkeys = Unharmed Donkeys
Igor International = Rotate Nail In Groin
Landor = No Lard
Catchword Branding = Drab Chanting Crowd
Metaphor = To Hamper
Master McNeil Inc = Immanent Circles
Mnemonic = I’m Con Men
Interbrand = Drab Intern

Photo of unharmed donkeys by Alexandra from her trip to Tanzania in 2004.

What's the (exclamation) point, SOLUT!

Granted, this company is not well known, or particularly interesting, but we can't pass up a bad name when we run across it.  In our sights today is Duracorp (hello 1950's!!) who have announced that they are changing their name, logo and tagline, all of which is included in one graphic on the right.
Some comments about the new name "SOLUT!".

Erik O’Neil, Vice President of Sales, says “only our name has changed to better reflect the brand essence of our growing company, and we are committed to responding quickly to the packaging needs of our customers with creative solutions”  OK, now how is that?!!!  We are of the opinion that reasons for name changes have to make sense and not be some blah blah blah MBA speak about brand essence.  How about "Duracorp frankly just bored us to death and made us sound like a 1950's company out of a business management textbook, and the best thing we could come up with unfortunately was SOLUT!."

The exclamation mark in both the name and the tagline?   Why is that?  Are we supposed to be excited about buying your thermoformed paper products ?   Does your receptionist answer the phone with an loud cheerleaderish "SOLUT!"?  Leaving aside the unnecessary exclamation mark in the name, it becomes truly superfluous in the tagline (see SOLUT!ONS) unless it is a clue to where the hell the word SOLUT! came from.  In fact, the press release announcing the new name says  "the new name is derived from the word ‘solutions’, and better reflects  the core essence of the Company—responding quickly to provide creative solutions for the packaging needs of its customers."  Here and we thought thermoformed paper products was the core essence of the company.  How about THERMO! or PROD!

Compounding the artificial excitement is the all caps name.  As we know, USING ALL CAPS IS LIKE YELLING, SO NOW WE ARE YELLING THE NAME OF THE COMPANY EXCITEDLY --SOLUT!

Let's talk about the tagline, also in all caps, FORMING SUSTAINABLE SOLUT!ONS.  The only thing missing is an exclamation point at the end.  Well, that's not the only thing missing.  It's also missing the mark.  The company claims the new tagline is "to focus attention on its distinctive abilities to form uniquely designed paper based packaging solutions."  zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz   How about, Not your mama's thermoformed paper products!, or something that elicits some emotion or inspiration.

Watch for the letter from V&S Vin & Sprit Aktiebolag's counsel (maker's of Absolut Vodka ), they are trademark protection pit bulls that go after anything sounding remotely like their name regardless of what your goods or services are. 

We dislike the injudicious use of exclamation points.  We DO enjoy the judicious use of them in, let's say, the Bloom logo though.  In a search of the USPTO database, we found 35,562 marks using !, 822 using !!, 355 using !!!, 10 using !!!!, 4 using !!!!!, 3 using !!!!!! and 2 using !!!!!!!!. Yikes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, does SOLUT!  pass the Eat My Words  Scratch Test?

SCRATCH - scratch if it has any of these deal-breakers
Spelling-challenged - YES !
Copycat – similar to competitor's names - Not that we can tell
Random – disconnected from brand - YES!, although they did try!
Annoying – hidden meaning, forced  - YES!
Tame – flat, uninspired  - YES! Despite the exclamation!!!!!!
Curse of Knowledge –No, it's just cursed!!
Hard-to-pronounce  -Not really, but once you pronounce you are still in the dark!!!!!

So, if nailing just one of these is a deal-breaker, hitting on as many of these mistake makes it an instant inductee into the Name Shame Hall of Fame and a leading contender for our Head Scratcher of the Year contest.

TO VENT: Send your contender(s) for The Name Shame Hall of Fame to nameshame @ eatmywords dot com. (We won’t sell your email address to spammers, we promise.)

 

Double-Dip Dreamery - Who Really Came Up With This Cool Name?

Here at Eat My Words, we are not generally fans of made-up names, but we do make the occasional exception. One such exception is a name that we, amazing at it may seem, did not invent. However, it does appear that at least two different naming firms are claiming it as their creative work.  The name in question is Dreamery.   This higher-end ice cream was originally owned by Dreyer's, who were forced to divest the brand when they merged with Nestlé.  This divesture was caused by the FTC to avoid "likely anticompetitive effects of  overlaps in the "superpremium" ice cream businesses of Nestlé and Dreyer's". 

Gee, we thought it just made you fat.

Dreamery now resides with Coolbrands (get it? ice cream and frozen delights?), home of the ubiquitous Eskimo Pie.   Interestingly, Dreyer's still uses the Dreamery name on a couple of their flavors.

O.K., enough history, what TWO firms are claiming naming rights?  Catchword and Idiom   So, whose is it?   We would be happy to take evidence into account and report accordingly.  As we all know, double-dipping is verboten.

We will be searching out additional double-dipped name claims in future postings, while asking the questions:  a) how can the same name be claimed by more than one company (we kind of can guess at the answer but it is a disingenuous one), and 2) should potential clients take it on faith that naming company portfolios are not fluffed up a bit?

In the meantime take a look the guaranteed 100% fluff-free portfolio of our favorite naming company.

Oriental Mildew - a taste of Zimbabwe

If you have ever sucked down a mouthful of African river water like I did in Zimbabwe, where I nearly drowned in the Zambezi and ended up in Zambia, you will be delighted to know that that delicious taste has now been replicated (or at least it sounds like it has) in a new Zimbabwe juice brand, ORIENTAL MILDEW. The product has already flooded most of the retail outlets in Harare where it is high demand. (Okay. And Mugabe won the last election.) I can't track down a photograph of  the Oriental Mildew bottle, but the taste sounds so hideous that surely dictator Mugabe's mug graces the packaging. I know all of this sounds adventurous and exciting, but by all means, do not go to Zimbabwe, which from what I've seen is the most corrupt country on the planet. If you must see Victoria Falls on your way to the Okavango Delta, do it from the kinder, gentler Zambian side. And if you just want to live vicariously through me, here are photos of the mighty Vic Falls, the churning Zambezi below and what it looks like when your raft flips over on top of you in a class 4 rapid. 

Make Love, Not Landfill

Americans are currently adding 30 million PET water bottles to our nation's landfills – everyday! To help get the message out, Eat My Words created this new slogan for our client SIGG, makers of the coolest water bottles on the planet. (See next post...)

Our "Red Alert" SIGG bottle featured on The Today Show

Anyone who has ever been to a party at Eat My Words gets a super cool SIGG bottle as a party favor. SIGG was featured in TIME magazine's "The Most Amazing Inventions of 2005" –  the recognition comes a little late because SIGG has been around nearly 100 years – but better late than never, right? We just found out our "Red Alert" SIGG was on the Today Show, and when we went to SIGG's press page to snatch a photo, we saw that SIGG was on the Today Show again, THIS WEEK. Hottie Matt Lauer interviewed author, David Bach of "Go Green, Live Rich" about some ways to go green and save green. His recommendations included owning SIGG bottles, which were featured on the show alongside other great green products. Who knew bottled water cost more than 2,500 times that of tap water. Check out more colorful SIGG bottles named by Eat My Words.

Compare the names of 30 naming firms in one little PDF.

Any naming firm can dazzle you with impressive lists of clients, slick presentations and puffed up mumbo jumbo about their patent-pending Verbal Identity Engineering process. But when it comes down to it, you're not hiring a naming firm for all the hoo-ha - you're hiring them to create the perfect name. For your convenience (and our amusement), we have compiled an anthology of names created by nearly 30 naming firms from ABC Namebank to Zenmark. This apples-to-apples comparison against Eat My Words is enlightening, entertaining and for the most part, totally horrifying. And as devilish as we are, we promise we did not pepper the list with fake names - these are straight from the websites of the respective naming firms. Don't wait another minute, download the PDF and see who can take credit for such doozies as Itzakadoozie, Hyyrus, Encysive, Opteum, Sageo, Piralta, and Phyve.

An enlightened name change.

HeliumReport was a website devoted to helping millionaires take the guesswork out of high-end purchases (fractional jet, anyone?). They came to us for a new name that was more reflective of their business and affluent audience. The final contenders were The Gravy (alluding to the good life and rich information) and Halogen Guides (illuminating information and shedding light on luxury purchases). The client chose Halogen Guides, a smooth and natural transition from HeliumReport. Halogen maintains the continuity of an element from the periodic table, starts with the same letter, yet is much more sophisticated and deeper in meaning and wordplay. The tagline we developed, "Your life. Well spent." is emotional, evocative and empowering.

 

How to get more mileage out of your brand name

Most names get slapped on a product, website or business card and the buck stops there. But you can get a lot more mileage and ROI out of a name if it has long legs. A name with legs is rich in wordplay, lends itself to brand extensions, has an unlimited shelf life, can grow with the brand, and never gets dated (like eHarmony or iMotors). One name with great legs is Cake Financial, the leading online social network for investing.  created Cake to reflect what we see as their biggest benefit: "easy money." Here are some of ways that Cake has extended the name throughout the brand:
The Slice is the name of their weekly video show
The Cakedex is the top investor's performance index
The Cake "Take" is their system of rating stocks
The Cakeateria is the employee snack room
Citizen Cake was the the launch party venue

Does your name have legs and the 4 other must-have qualities of a powerful brand name? Take the Eat My Words' SMILE & SCRATCH Test™ and find out.

How your name can generate buzz and bacon

In today's freaky economy, advertising budgets are facing extinction and marketing dollars are being stretched like carnival taffy. Your name has to do more, say more, and work harder than ever before. Without a massive ad campaign to drill it in (think: Head On), consumers cannot remember brand names that are tame, tired, copycat, spelling-challenged, or have hidden meanings. Now more than ever, it's critical that your name is memorable, meaningful, sticky, has legs, speaks volumes, and can pay for itself. You know you have a winning name with ROI when it...  

Generates buzz without spending advertising dollars

Is instantly likeable, creating affinity for your brand

Has strong differentiation for brand-recognition

Emotionally connects with your target, inspiring loyalty

Stays fresh and vibrant, never becomes dated

Positions you as a trendsetter, increasing your credibility

Is rich in wordplay, allowing for brand extensions while retaining the name's original charm

Can be monetized through merchandise & licensing, with people paying you to advertise your brand

 

Learn more about how a powerful name can cut the fat and bring home the bacon.

Eat My Words featured in Entrepreneur.com

from Entrepreneur.com
April 7, 2008

Small, But Spunky
Create an inspiring and functional office when space is limited. 
By Jennifer Grzeskowiak

"If you have a creative business, what better way to showcase your creativity than with your office?" asks Alexandra Watkins, owner of Eat My Words, a naming firm in San Francisco. Watkins' 900-square-foot work space is so creative, in fact, that when clients from Del Monte walked into the space, they said they had to work with her.  Among other things, the clients saw a diner-style booth functioning as a desk and conference room table, a pink refrigerator used as a bookcase, and a sizable collection of hot sauce bottles and floaty pens.

While the office provides plenty of visual interest that reflects Watkins' personality, it's also highly functional. The booth seats lift up for storage, and a custom credenza houses a printer, laptop, books, office supplies and paper. Watkins also had a less-than-3-foot-high closet turned into a storage cabinet with horizontal flat files. And she stores organizational bins wherever possible, including under a couch and behind curtain panels.

"I didn't want the space to look like an office while I was living there," she says. "But now that I'm not living there, I still don't want it to look like an office."

See more photos of the wildly colorful Eat My Words office...

Spoon Me, Baby!

The frozen yogurt chain we named "Spoon Me" is enjoying phenomenal success... check out how wildly popular it is...

Spotlight on: Circle®Brands

This is a continuing series of  postings that will spotlight other naming firms.  We think our clients should have a choice, and clearly Eat My Words is not the only naming firm in business.

Next up is Circle®Brands, a self-described "dedicated band of brand architects passionate about creating distinct company names, product and service names, taglines and slogans. We subscribe to and incorporate the highly scientific, yet universally ignored, study of “human nature” and “common sense” to create names and phrases that exude instant brand resonance, memorability and top-of-mind awareness with your audience. " 

Circle®Brands was unknown to us, and perhaps the world, until we stumbled across this press release entitled: MAVERICK NAMING COMPANY CREATES BRANDING INDUSTRY FIRST.

How could we not be intrigued?  Here is the industry first.  They have "boldly reverse-engineered the customary approach to branding by creating and trademarking comprehensive brand identity packages in advance of any client initiative."

That's right, they name your company before you have a company.  A naming Field of Dreams, if you will.

A sampling of these proto-names includes:

• We Do The Math® - (brand package designed to catapult a progressive accounting/CPA firm into a national household name)
• Get SMiTTEN!® - (campaign for the Love of Michigan, playing off the geographically unique mitten-shaped state) 
• LaBeatOh!® - (multi-faceted brand identity package that blends music and merchandising into a worldwide franchising concept revolving around a unique and exciting Latin-themed dining and entertainment venue)
• LVNV™ - (acronym for "Las Vegas Envy," Circle®Brands has created for the promotion of tourism and commerce for the city of Las Vegas, NV)
• Aguavana - (original name we created and submitted for consideration for the new 4-star luxury hotel concept from Joie de Vivre Hospitality) 
• BloomService® - (ultimate brand identity package for the floral, gifting and garden lifestyle industry is geared to rival the industry frontrunner 1-800-FLOWERS)
• Pizzapotamus® - (the Revolutionary New Marketing Tool For The Next Fast Food Generation!)
• Dr. Chewlittle's - (a clever and kid-friendly brand identity package ideal for marketing a doctor-recommended or created organic baby food and product line)

Perhaps you have noticed that certain names have the "®" designation, meaning the mark has been registered at the USPTO.  We looked up We Do The Math® and discovered that it is in fact a registered trademark as "Accounting Services" and was first used in commerce on 09-22-2002.  The owner is an affiliate of Circle®Brands, named  Lip Service® Communications.  Nowhere on the  Lip Service  website can we find any reference to accounting services (the WeDoTheMath.com website is a placeholder), so we don't know how the claim for "used in service" is upheld.  Our guess is that the other registered marks may have similar issues.

Seeing that WeDoTheMath.com was purchased on March 29, 2002 and is still owned by our spotlight company, it appears that  reverse-engineering  doesn't add up to much.   

We think this reverse-engineering concept is odd, soulless, hollow and lifeless.  Instead, check out some great names created for the real world by our favorite naming company.

Oh, and we Do the Math.

 

IS CIRCLE®BRAND THE NAMING  FIRM FOR YOU?

To evaluate if a naming firm is a good fit for you, ask yourself these 5 questions:

1. Does the company have a creative name?
2. How memorable are the names in their portfolio?
3. Do they have experience in your category?
4. What do their clients say about them?
5. Do they look like they’d be fun to work with?

For more on other naming firms stay tuned for spotlights in our blog or check out Our Competitors on the Eat My Words website, which provides a fresh alternative to old-school naming.

The Skinny Version of our fun work slideshow

We've trimmed down our PDF to an easy-breezy 12 page slideshow of our work and capabilities. Check it out to see samples of our work and learn more about how Eat My Words creates unforgettable brand names that build instant affinity for brands and have proven ROI. Download EatMyWords_InANutshell.pdf

Xohm - a name that should've been X'd off the list

As the Easter Bunny makes his rounds, Sprint has brought us an egg of its own: Xohm (WiMax Service).  Eat My Words would like to extend Xohm a warm welcome to the Name Shame Hall of  Fame.

What does Xohm mean?  No one seems to know, even the executives of the company. Atish Gude, Sr. VP of mobile broadband operations for Xohm said the company chose Xohm "because a marketing company told it to." He goes on to say,  "we contracted with a company to come up with a very cool, cutting-edge name that really reflects what we're trying to do - which is mobilize the internet."  How does the name reflect that?  Gude calls it, "an empty vessel...We can make it out to be whatever we want."  That marketing (naming) agency in question is Zenmark, a self proclaimed "World-Class Verbal Design Agency." (They sound ripe for one of our Competitive  Spotlights.)

Sprint's John Polivka says Xohm is a made-up word, but Sprint fully intends to make Xohm a household name, hopefully spawning such usages as "Xohm me" or "meet me in the "Xohm."  Polivka goes on to say, "focus groups keyed in on the lead letter "X" for its "cool factor." Finally, Polivka says that " the end goal is for the new name to become synonymous with the mobile Internet just as Xerox has become synonymous with photocopying." (EMW:  Is he serious?  Meet me in the Xohm?  Cool Factor? Xerox?)

In various press release, Sprint says that Xohm is pronounced "Zoam." Others say "Zome." What we find amusing is that they tell us that Xohm is pronounced like two words that don't exist.

So, does Xohm pass the Eat My Words  Scratch Test?

SCRATCH - scratch if it has any of these deal-breakers
Spelling-challenged - yes it is, oh please yes
Copycat – similar to competitor's names - no, thank God
Random – disconnected from brand - yes, and from reality
Annoying – hidden meaning, forced  - blue ribbon here
Tame – flat, uninspired  - yes, despite  the "X" factor
Curse of Knowledge –no, not even insiders get it
Hard-to-pronounce  -yes, even with the tutorial

So, if nailing just one of these is a deal-breaker, hitting a home run on all of these mistakes it an instant inductee into the Name Shame Hall of Fame and a leading contender for our Head Scratcher of the Year contest. Note: the name is similar to last year's winner, Xobni. Starting a name with X is so 2007, or in the case of Xerox, so 1961.)

TO VENT: Send your contender(s) for The Name Shame Hall of Fame to nameshame @ eatmywords.com. (We won’t sell your email address to spammers, we promise.)

Can your name pass The SMILE & SCRATCH Test?

The secret to powerful, unforgettable and sticky brand names is simple, "A name should make you smile, instead of scratch your head." We evaluate every name we create based on this no-brainer philosophy - and now you can too with the new Eat My Words SMILE  and SCRATCH Test^TM. Run your own product and company names through the test and see how they hold up. It's not as easy as it sounds. Most names fail because they are spelling-challenged, hard to pronounce, and meaningless to customers who don't know Latin (which is just about everyone except for Alexandra's mother). So cancel your focus groups and use this criteria any time you're trying to objectively evaluate a name. You'll instantly be able to see if you have a winning name or if you should scratch it off your list.

SMILE – the qualities of a powerful name
Simple – easy to spell, say, and understand
Meaningful – your customers instantly "get it"
Imagery – visually evocative - creates a picture in your mind
Legs – carries brand, rich wordplay, brand-extensions
Emotional – empowers, entertains, engages, enlightens

SCRATCH - scratch if it has any of these deal-breakers
Spelling-challenged - it's not spelled the way it sounds
Copycat – similar to competitor's names
Random – disconnected from the brand
Annoying – hidden meaning, forced
Tame – flat, uninspired, non-emotional, boring
Curse of Knowledge – only insiders get it
Hard-to-pronounce - not obvious, relies on punctuation

All of our names pass the test: Spoon Me, Neato, Monkey Dunks, Cake Financial, DayTipper, Dizzywood, Dash, and countless others. Do yours?

This BS Brand Didn't Bear Up

Our friends at Cake Financial (a company that Eat My Words named), have a post on their dishy blog concerning the recent bad news about Bear Stearns.  (While on the subject, we are enjoying "The Slice", Cake Financial's weekly market summary video starring Steve and Sven that is funny and destined for Internet immortality.) The Bear Stearns financial fallout resulted in a reduction in market cap from the 52 week high of $21.7 billion on April 25, 2007, to a low of $386 million on March 17, 2008 .

What ultimately will happen with the firm started by  Joseph Bear and Robert Stearns in 1923 is not yet clear, but it is safe to say it will not ever recapture it's prominent position on wall street, it's market value, or (the ultimate point of this post), it's brand value.

As recently as the third quarter of 2007, Corebrand ranked Bear Stearns #429  in it's regular BrandPower Rankings ( Between US Bancorpand Deutsche Bank, to put it in perspective).  According to Corebrand, BrandPower is "a single-score measure of the size and quality (familiarity and favorability) of a company’s reputation.  It’s a measure of brand equity presented in both historical and competitive context. " 

Our guess is that it will most likely (O.K., for sure) drop off the list altogether next time CoreBrand does their rankings.

While this is an extreme example, a significant portion of the aforementioned market cap freefall can be attributed to the intangible value of Bear Stearns which includes its "brand".

Perhaps Bear Stearns will take the time honored path of changing its name to distance itself from its own past, or just quietly fold into the paternal hands of its savior, JP Morgan.  If you want to change your name and rebuild a new brand, Bear Stearns, we're here for you.  Eat My Words specializes in creating names that score immediate (to use CoreBrand's words) familiarity and favorability.  We're all about helping a company build its brand from the start with a name that creates buzz, which creates publicity, which creates business, which creates revenue, which creates brand value. 

To put it mathematically:

EMW = ROI

 

This is no understatement

Nothing like a good cheeky descriptive name.  We just became aware of a German männerwäsche store called, um...Balls.  In case you were unclear of their point, there are some new print ads starring a couple of manly men, packaged as it were, to highlight the store's specialty.    Subtle they are not.  Unfortunately, their website is in German, but you get the gist of  what they are doing in a less than perfect Babelfish translation:

"In addition a badly sitting underwear can all day long a bad. Everyone knows these notch clamp down trousers, which one all day long reminded of it to buy next time better laundry".  We don't know about you but we hate it when badly sitting underwear can all day long a bad. 

Of course, this got us to thinking about männerwäsche product names that are hanging out there in the world. 

Here are some of our favorites: Thunderpants, Ballbra, Fig Leaves, Giggleberries, Below The Belt, Brass Monkeys, Freshpair and  Budgy Smuggler - an Australian slang term used to describe  snug-hugging man pants, which, when viewed from the front, looks as though the man in question may be trying to hide a domestic budgerigar (a small parrot) in said man pants.

Point is, underwear is inherently funny, so why have a serious name for either the store or the product?  Some people probably thought they were nuts, but credit goes to Balls for having the Cojónes to bag a great name.  We'll leave you with a little innovative guerrilla marketing program they erected all over Berlin.

Spotlight on: Bizword

This is a continuing series of  postings that will spotlight other naming firms.  We think our clients should have a choice, and clearly Eat My Words is not the only naming firm in business.

Speaking of business, or Bizness, is the naming firm Bizword. On their bare bones website they refer to themselves as "the name in branding (sm)."  Ironically, for being "the name in branding(sm)", they don't list any brand names they have actually come up with. 

As such, we will have to take their Bizword that they "develop powerful, compelling trademarks that sell. From gleam in the eye start-ups to entrenched global behemoths, our work spans the gamut of verbal brand expression: strategy; corporate, product and service naming; nomenclatures; architectures; brandlines and taglines."

In checking the USPTO database, we find in addition to Bizword, they also have the trademark on Überbrand, but no help there either.

We also found a quote from 1999 attributed to a principal of Bizword that may explain part of this dilemma.  In discussing the impact of the Internet on competition he says:

       "The great equalizer is the ability for anyone with dial-up access and an Internet account to build a website", explains Dennis Rainer, principal for Bizword (formerly Name-design), a San Jose, Calif.-based branding firm.

OK, but then after you build it, shouldn't you do something with it?

Bizword has had an Internet presence since December 2000,  so it is odd they have not shared any of their names with the world in the last seven years.  So, having no names to review, the best we can do is to provide a progression of their own taglines over the years:

• Planetary Trademarks. Phonetically Engineered.
• Breakout Branding.
• The idea and taste machine.
• Take me home.   (Ed. What?)

If Bizword wants to tell us some of their names, we will be happy to list them here.

__________, _________, __________, ___________, ____________, __________.

In the meantime, take a look at some publicized names by our favorite naming firm.

IS BIZWORD THE RIGHT NAMING FIRM FOR YOU?

To evaluate if a naming firm is a good fit for you, ask yourself these 5 questions:

1. Does the company have a creative name?
2. How memorable are the names in their portfolio?
3. Do they have experience in your category?
4. What do their clients say about them?
5. Do they look like they’d be fun to work with?

For more on other naming firms stay tuned for spotlights in our blog or check out Our Competitors on the Eat My Words website, which provides a fresh alternative to old-school naming.

Mxyplyzyk - a Superman name that's Super Bad

Submitted by our Sous Chef, Caroline “Ruby Sneakers” Leavitt, our most outrageous inductee into the Name Shame Hall of Fame ever is a quirky Greenwich Village gift boutique named Mxyplyzyk. The store claims "the name is inspired by a character in early Superman comics." Ironically, they didn't use the actual character's name,  (Mr.) Mxyzptlk, (pictured below) which is spelled differently than "Mxyplyzyk," (perhaps thinking they might head off a C&D letter from D.C. Comics), because you cannot, after all,  confuse Mxyplyzyk with Myxzptlk. 

Mxyplyzyk hits all the criteria to qualify for the Name Shame Hall of Fame and is a leading contender for the annual Head Scratcher™ trophy, awarded each December by Eat My Words. Here's why:

1. It’s difficult to pronounce the first time you see it (actually every time you see it)
2. It’s meaningless unless someone explains it to you (even then)
3. It's forced and unnatural sounding (oh boy)
4. It has an unnatural spelling (ya think? )
5. It’s just damn annoying (did we say oh boy yet?)

In the "small world" department, back when she lived in New York, our Striking Siren Sherry lived three blocks from Mxyplyzyk  and bought her floating hemisphere fish tank there (let her explain it to you).  At the time, she recalls asking the clerk what the name meant and he told her,  "It's the planet where Superman's mom and dad were born."  As all Superman geeks know, that planet of course, would actually be Krypton.  Geez, if the employee's don't know what the name means, that's pretty weak.

Inc. magazine briefly discussed Mxyplyzyk in an article entitled "What's in a Name"?

Here is an except from the full article:

Kevin Brynan spends a large chunk of his day explaining over and over again how to pronounce the word Mxyplyzyk--the name of his gift shop in New York City's Greenwich Village. As it happens, the name (which is pronounced "mix-ee-pliz-ik," in case you were stumped) is so long that Brynan's business card is a three-part foldout. The unusual moniker, created by a co-founder and inspired by a Superman comic book character, is fitting for a shop with unusual items like pug dog "puggy" banks and warped vinyl record serving bowls. On the other hand, it's hard to tell your friends about a store when you can't pronounce the name, and good luck finding it online. Ultimately, Brynan thinks the unusual name has been a plus, highlighting the store's quirkiness and helping to draw foot traffic. Nonetheless, he adds, "sometimes I wish we'd named it John Doe."   

(Side note to all journalists:  Please stop using "What's in a name?" every time you do an article about naming.  It was clever about 400 years ago, but not so much anymore.)

So, welcome to The Hall Mxyplyzyk.  It's a rare name that is so very wrong on every level and makes us scratch our heads super hard.  However, we can give credit where credit is due.  We are quite sure that every extension of the domain name was available on GoDaddy for $9.95, which is a deciding factor for many companies when choosing a name. More on that later...

 

Spotlight on: ABC Namebank

This is the first in a series of weekly postings  that will spotlight other naming firms. We think our clients should have a choice, and clearly Eat My Words is not the only naming firm in the phone book.

Speaking of phone books, just like "ABC Carpet Cleaning," and "ABC Plumbing," who have outsmarted their competition with names that get them listed first in the Yellow Pages, the first naming firm featured is "ABC Namebank." The brainchild of  "Naseem Javed, (pictured above), ABC Namebank  is a naming company whose "level of specialization is unmatched by any other agency in the world."

ABC Namebank's gold-star portfolio include Telus, Intria, Zarlink, Tronicus, Duplium, Gentra, Genexxa, Celestica, Minnova,  Gennum, Agricore, Pollara, Vincor and "hundreds of others," which do not appear on their website.  We did find this on the website though: "Over-creativity can cause fire and damage. Don't get too creative. Do not twist, bend, stretch, exaggerate, corrupt or modify alpha-structures to their extremes in naming. It may result in difficult,confusing, unpronounceable and only silly names. Avoid overly creative solutions."

A scrolling ticker on the homepage links to  Mr. Javed's appearance on CNN Business Unusual. If you don't have time to watch it, here are  some highlights...

On how he named his company...
"We specialize in the alphabet, 26 letters of the alphabet. All the connotations, all the permutations, the analysis. I  borrowed the first three letters for my company".

On if Coca-Cola was a good name...
"Coca Cola is a very nice name. It was developed 20-30 years ago, 50 years ago [actually 1888]. But you would not want to fly a Coca-Cola Airlines most probably it will leak all over the place".

On what some good new names were...
Sony [formed 1958], Panasonic [formed in 1955] and Microsoft [formed in 1975]

In summary:
• There are 26 letters in the alphabet
• He's never enjoyed Virgin Cola on Virgin Airlines
• There have been no good names since 1975

IS ABC NAMEBANK THE RIGHT NAMING FIRM FOR YOU?
To evaluate if a naming firm is a good fit for you, ask yourself these 5 questions:

1. Does the company have a creative name?
2. How memorable are the names in their portfolio?
3. Do they have experience in your category?
4. What do their clients say about them?</