Eat My Words - The Kitchen Sink

Save the planet with out newest SIGG bottle

Inspired by the wildly successful and annoyingly ubiquitous, "I'm Not a Plastic Bag" canvas tote, the tagline geniuses at Eat My Words created a catchy and fitting slogan, "I'm Not Plastic," for longtime client SIGG. This slogan works harder than the overly obviously and silly "I'm not a plastic bag" because both the aluminum bottle and (hopefully) the socially-responsible SIGG swigger are not plastic. (I think Paris Hilton is banned from owning one.)  Speaking of scary things, did you know that 2.5 MILLION plastic water bottles are thrown away every hour in the United States?! StopGlobalWarming.org has partnered with SIGG to create this re-usable water bottle "so we can all do our part and ditch the plastic." (Keep those plastic credit cards though and buy your own SIGG bottle online...they retail for $22 and can be purchased here.)

Thanks to our generous SIGG clients Steve Wasik (CEO, SIGG Switzerland) and Robert Rheaume (President, SIGG USA), Eat My Words has given hundreds of SIGG bottles to just about everyone who has ever visited our wildly colorful office or attended one of our blowout parties. (We think perpetual party-goer Anthony Shore of Landor has around 17.) We're raffling off a bunch our favorite SIGG bottles as well as some of the sexy new designs at our annual Summer Fling cocktail party tomorrow night, and Alexandra just gave a free SIGG to every guest who attended her "Secrets of Success" speech at the City Club of San Francisco.

Get one today and don't be plastic.

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...)

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.

 

Spoon Me, Baby!

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

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?

Newly Minted Tagline for Chocolatemint Water

We're huge fans of Metromint, so we were thrilled when they tapped Eat My Words to create a multi-purpose tagline for their new  Chocolatemint water. But how would it taste? (Considering some people think Metromint tastes like mouthwash, we weren't sure what to expect.) Luckily, Alexandra was immediately hooked. It's simply magical, which is what inspired the tagline... "We've turned water into chocolate." It's hard to believe that something that tastes so naughty is actually good for you and has no calories, preservatives or sweetners. It's just pure water with cocoa essence and real mint. Look for it in hip stores and at our next party.
            

Dizzywood - a new spin on invented website names

We're not usually fans of invented website names, but when Rocket Paper Scissors asked Eat My Words to name their new virtual world, we jumped at the chance to make up a fun word. Like the website, the name had to inspire a sense of imagination, discovery, exploration, and most of all, fun. (The client's original name was Zoodaloo, which is cute but hard to spell and too similar to other names with Zoo in them.) We knew we could come up with a distinctive name that made this magical story-driven world sound like a fun and entertaining place for kids. And we did. The winning name was Dizzywood. This is an excellent example of an invented name because it combines two familiar words into a name that actually sounds like a real place. And unlike 99% of invented names, Dizzywood is easy to say and easy to spell, which is critical for customers to find you on the Web, especially when your audience is comprised of 8-12 year olds. TASTY TRIVIA: Our runner up name, RubySneakers, got dinged because Turner Networks, who own the rights to the Wizard of Oz, is highly litigious over the use of Ruby. Talk about a wicked witch! Dizzywood is currently in Beta testing and you are welcome to try it out at www.dizzywood.com.

Introducing Neato, the home cleaning robot (and household word)

For months we've been waiting to officially let this name out of the vacuum cleaner bag... Eat My Words is pleased to announce, Neato - a sexy little home cleaning robot from Neato Robotics, formerly known as Home Robots. The word "Neato" is fun and playful. The word "Robotics" is serious and sci-fi. They balance each other beautifully. And you thought Roomba was a good name. Ha! We'll let you know when it rolls into a store near you.

It may not be our sexiest name, but it's certainly the steamiest!

While we are usually annoyed by the obnoxious product placement on our favorite TV show, Top Chef, we freaked out (in a good way) when our new Glad Simply Cooking Microwave Steaming Bags took center stage. These super space age bags are perfect for steaming veggies -- just fill, zap and serve. No waiting for water to boil, no messy pots and pans to clean. And according to the Man from Glad in this painfully cheesy video demo, you can even use them make "tasty omelets and fluffy desserts." 

 

Introducing Cake Financial. Easy. Money.

We were asked to create a tagline for a new investing service called Portfolia, which doesn't exactly stand out in a sea of Wall Street websites. So we convinced them to let us rename the company. This easy-to-use site lets you check out the actual portfolios, watchlists and real-time trades of top investors and your family and friends. Plus you can see how you stack up against others, which is fun unless you suck in the market. And you can do it all safely, securely and anonymously. For free. It's cake. And that's what we named it - Cake. If you're an investor, check out the alpha version of this "social investing revolution."