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July 01, 2011
September 15, 2009
New "Head Scratcher of the Year" Contender: Chyngle
OMG, their name as confusing as what they do... "Chyngle is the first mobile location-based service
to provide a venue branded ultra-local experience
for users to interact and exchange value with each
other and their surroundings within what we call
Ultra-Local Environments™ or ULE's." Huh?
Too bad the Chynglers didn't see this before they paid $14.95 for their domain name...
The Eat My Words SMILE & SCRATCH Test (as seen in The Wall Street Journal), is based on our philosophy that a name should make you smile, instead of scratch your head.
SMILE if your name has these 5 success factors:
Simple – one easy-to-understand concept - NO
Meaningful – your customers instantly "get it" - NO
Imagery – visually evocative - creates a mental picture - NO
Legs – carries the brand, lends itself to wordplay - NO
Emotional – empowers, entertains, engages, enlightens - NO
SCRATCH it if it has any of these deal-breakers:
Spelling-challenged – not intuitive - CHECK
Copycat – similar to competitor's names
Random – disconnected from the brand - CHECK
Annoying – hidden meaning, forced - CHECK
Tame – flat, uninspired, boring, non-emotional - CHECK
Curse of Knowledge – only insiders get it - CHECK
Hard-to-pronounce – not obvious - CHECK
Thanks to our buddy Paul K. for sending us this doozie.
August 13, 2009
You would have to be really thirsty to drink this...
A photo submitted from our pal Rich Binell of Get Rich Quick!
April 10, 2009
I must confess that truuconfessions is a truuly dreadful name.
Regular Kitchen Sink contributor Robin Wolaner of TeeBeeDee tipped us off to this truuly dreadful name, truuconfessions, which was clearly the result of someone thinking they were being clever by snagging the domain name for $9.95 on GoDaddy. (The correct spelling, www.trueconfessions.com is parked - why not just pony up the money and save yourselves the nightmare of having to say, "That's 'true' with two u's and no e" every time they tell someone the name. Painfuul.) Too bad the name is so bad as truuconfessions provides hours of fun... Here are some confessions I found under different categories:
Military Wife: I shop too much while my husband is gone. (Posted by "anonymous")
Office: If you say "cool beany weenies" one more time I'm going to staple your mouth shut. Your 40 years old, come on! (Posted by "anonymous")
Mom: It drives me crazy when childless people say "I love my dogs like I would love my kid". How do you know? You don't have a kid off which to base that statement. (Posted by "anonymous")
Bride: I want to kill my MOH! She insisted I try false eyelashes on my wedding day and I foolishly listened to her and had a woman I'd never met come over to put them on. It was such a disaster - I had glue all over my eyelids and I looked like a transvestite with clumpy black long FAKE lashes!!!! (Posted by "anonymous")
Wife: My husband is pissed at me for not making the kids mow the lawn before he came home from work. (Posted by "anonymous")
Obama O's Cereal "Hope In Every Bowl"
Just caught this on Twitter. (Thanks Edith!)
April 06, 2009
Marketing gurus re-name pollack to boost sales... and call it COLIN
Thanks to Kitchen Sink fan Igal Gabbay for alerting us to the latest naming disaster from the nitwit Brits...
Marketing gurus re-name pollack to boost sales... and call it COLIN
from the salacious tabloid, The Daily Mail
By Sean Poulter
06th April 2009
When the marketing experts at Sainsbury's sat down to the task of trying to boost sales of pollack, they had a brainwave.
'Let's give it a new name,' they said.
Many months and meetings later, the name was chosen - Colin.
Colin (pronounced Col-an) is what the French, who actually can't get enough of Britain's pollack, call the fish once it has been cooked.
It is an interesting choice of name and one which the British shopper may struggle to come to terms with.
Sainsbury's said the exercise is designed to make British consumers add pollack to their shopping list as an alternative to threatened species such as cod.
There is a feeling that the current name is as ugly as the bug-eyed fish itself, while it seems a number of shoppers are wary about asking for pollack.
April 04, 2009
Brooklyn Restaurant’s Name Hits a Sour Note
By KAREEM FAHIM
Published: April 3, 2009
To the list of lofty names that glamorize the city’s fried chicken stands, like Crown, Royal and Kennedy, one Brooklyn restaurant owner decided to add another: Obama.
From the restaurant’s perspective, the name change grew out of pride in the new president and a keen sense of commerce. From other perspectives, it was tone-deaf at best, and racist at worst. When the restaurant, Royal Fried Chicken on Rutland Road in Brownsville, changed its name last week to Obama Fried Chicken, the reaction was swift.
“Community leaders came. They told us we have to change the name,” said Mohammad Jabbar, 33, the manager. “They said if you don’t change it they will take action.”
It was the latest outbreak of commercial enthusiasm for President Obama and his family. An Illinois company tried to sell dolls that looked like the president’s daughters, and a Brooklyn brewery, Sixpoint Craft Ales, named a beer Hop Obama in honor of the community organizer in chief.
A few minutes’ drive from Obama Fried Chicken, Obama Beauty Supply opened its doors several months ago. Its owner, Mohammed Seraji, said he was inspired by his children’s enthusiasm for the president, along with Mr. Obama’s popularity in the neighborhood. A Michelle Obama wig he sells, for $49.99, is emerging as a popular item.
A White House spokesman, Ben LaBolt, said in an e-mail message, “The White House has a longstanding policy of disapproving uses of the president’s name and likeness for commercial purposes.”
At the restaurant, Mr. Jabbar, who said he had been a lawyer and university instructor in his native Bangladesh before moving here in January, has, apart from serving food, become Obama Fried Chicken’s spokesman. The owner, he said, did not wish to speak to reporters.
Explaining the decision to rename the restaurant, Mr. Jabbar said that not only was the owner fond of President Obama but that the entire neighborhood also “loved” him.
“From this love, everything is happening,” Mr. Jabbar said, weary from all the attention.
There were support and derision for the unnamed owner along Rutland Road, where most every store hangs a picture of the president, and where, on a rainy Friday, passers-by took cellphone pictures of the rebranded fried chicken stand.
Chantel Harewood, 18, a college student who grew up in the neighborhood, ordered food from Mr. Jabbar and said she liked the new name. “Why not? It’s history,” she said. “All these stereotypes. People got to relax.”
However, Mr. Jabbar said that the restaurant was bowing to the pressure, and that it would be renamed Popular Fried Chicken by the weekend. Ms. Harewood did not think much of the new name. “That’s so blah, predictable, typical,” she said. The current name, she added, gave her “pride.”
In the Au Monde Chic barbershop, where Mr. Obama’s portrait hung on a back wall, Alnord Benoit cut a customer’s hair and called the name change “disrespectful.”
“Did he get permission from Obama?” Mr. Benoit asked.
In a nearby computer store, the manager, Earl Dennis, jokingly said he should rename his place Obama’s Computer Store. “It’s publicity,” Mr. Dennis said. Of the chicken restaurant, he said, “I’m not eating there.”
Competition might have played some role in the new name. Crown Fried Chicken is across the street, owned by Osman Mohibi, 47, an Afghan immigrant. He keeps pictures of Mr. Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. taped to the plexiglass divider by the cash register.
Mr. Mohibi said his competitor’s misstep was winning new customers for Crown Fried Chicken. “He used the name,” Mr. Mohibi said of the owner. “He used black people.”
Kevin McCall, one of the community organizers who confronted Obama Fried Chicken’s owner, said he received calls from residents disturbed by the sign, and quickly contacted the owner to tell him it was “very offensive to African-Americans.”
The owner told him it would be taken down the next day, Mr. McCall said. When it was not, he contacted the owner again. “I said we would be out there having a rally,” Mr. McCall said.
City Councilman Charles Barron, who was also involved in the effort to change the name, said it was possible that the owner was simply trying to exploit the president’s name. “Fried chicken, watermelon and minstrels are part of the racist stereotyping of black people in America,” he said. “It’s outrageous. You have to be sensitive and knowledgeable.”
At the store on Friday afternoon, Mr. Jabbar served ice cream to teenagers and chicken wings to regulars. He said he did not really understand the pressure to bring down the sign, since everyone who came in the store seemed to like the idea. And he was concerned about what would happen if the community advocates returned.
“I’m new to this country,” he said. “I don’t really know what they could do.”
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March 31, 2009
Not a good Valentine's Day gift: Fat Pig Chocolate
Mik spotted this little piggy...
March 23, 2009
Two Mo' Eye Sore Head Scratchers
A newspaper in South Santa Clara, California has created a web design company called ISOARS. Ouch. What's really a shame is they actually have some nice looking web design and a playful personality. But their name is an eye sore and no one wants to have a site that makes their eyes hurt. I mean really, who wants to say their website was designed by what sounds exactly like "Eye Sores"?
It gets worse.
ISOARS created a digital coupon service with an even more cringe-worthy name:
I don't know where to begin with Mo-Quepons. It violates the most important rules of naming. It's hard to spell, pronounce, and downright annoying. And what's with the hyphen? You mean to tell me that www.moquepons.com was taken?!
Please guys, you need to spend mo' time evaluating names and less time thinking you hit the naming jackpot because the domain was available on GoDaddy for $9.95. That is not a good reason to choose a name. We suggest using the Eat My Words SMILE & SCRATCH Test (as seen in The Wall Street Journal), which is based on our philosophy that a name should make you smile, instead of scratch your head.
SMILE - the qualities of a powerful name:
Simple – one easy-to-understand concept
Meaningful – your customers instantly "get it"
Imagery – visually evocative - creates a mental picture
Legs – carries the brand, lends itself to wordplay
Emotional – e.g. empowers, entertains, engages, enlightens
SCRATCH it off the list if it has any of these deal-breakers:
Spelling-challenged – you have to tell people how to spell it
Copycat – similar to competitor's names
Random – disconnected from the brand
Annoying – hidden meaning, forced
Tame – flat, uninspired, boring, non-emotional
Curse of Knowledge – only insiders get it
Hard-to-pronounce – not obvious, relies on punctuation
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If you'd like to see some great names that past the test, check out the names created by Eat My Words - now these are a site for sore eyes!
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Thanks to my NSA ProTrack buddy Jim Carrillo for tipping me off to theses two doozies...
March 22, 2009
The onomatopoeia for a phlegmy cough
Mik was in the hippie health section of the grocery store yesterday and came across this Head Scratcher, Umcka. I believe "umcka" is the sound one makes when trying to clear phlegm from their throat, making this irritating name an onomatopoeia, or what is also called imitative harmony (or in this case, an irritative harmony). An onomatopoeia is a word that imitates the sound it is describing, such as noises like "oink," "meow," and in this case, "umcka."
Umcka is "new to the US," from Germany, the same country that brought us "Obama Fingers" and Wienerschnitzel.