Building the Perfect Beast

The Igor Naming Guide

Everything you've always wanted to know about naming companies, products and
services. Compiled from the Igor website into one handy guide.

Version: 1.6
Date: 25 June 2004

This document will be updated regularly with new content. Please check the Naming
Guide Download Page of the Igor website for the latest version:

http://www.igorinternational.com/naming-guide.html

All Material ©2004 Igor

Igor
1596 Howard Street, San Francisco, CA 94103
415.734.3560
[email protected]
http://www.igorinternational.com
Building the Perfect Beast: The Igor Naming Guide ©2004 Igor

Contents

I. Overview | 2
Creating Great Product and Company Names | 2

II. Executing the Six Process Points | 4

Step 1: Competitive Analysis | 4
Step 2: Positioning | 4
Step 3: Name / Brand Development | 5
Step 4: Trademark Prescreening | 10
Step 5: Creative / Testing | 11
Step 6: Name and Tagline | 12

III. Naming Tools | 13

A. Naming Process Filters – Evocative Names | 13
B. Naming Taxonomy Charts | 15

IV. Studies in Naming | 33

V. Studies in Branding | 40

VI. Case Studies of Igor Naming/Branding Projects | 43

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Building the Perfect Beast: The Igor Naming Guide ©2004 Igor

I. Overview

The best product & company names require the least advertising. They are
advertisements.

Great names are a powerful force in the branding, marketing and advertising campaigns
of the companies they work for. They differentiate you from competitors, make an
emotional connection with your audience, and help to build a brand that ignites the
passions of your customers.

At Igor, we believe that a powerful name is the result of a powerful positioning strategy.
The key is to find a fresh way into the hearts and minds of your customers, redefine and
own the conversation in your industry, and engage people on as many levels as
possible. The best product and company names represent the ultimate process of
boiling these ideas down into a word or two.

Creating Great Product and Company Names

Successful product and company names may appear to have been created by magic,
but it is possible to develop names that are dynamic, effective and fully leverage a
brand's potential if you have the right process in place. A process that is clear, insightful,
logical and focused will lead to a name and tagline that are powerful components of
your brand strategy, and pave the way for buy-in throughout your organization.

Before you begin, it is essential to decide what you want your new product or company
name to do for you. To make that decision, you need to understand the possibilities. A
name can:

• Achieve separation from your competitors

• Demonstrate to the world that you are different
• Reinforce a unique positioning platform
• Create positive and lasting engagement with your audience
• Be unforgettable
• Propel itself through the world on its own, becoming a no-cost, self-sustaining PR
vehicle
• Provide a deep well of marketing and advertising images
• Be the genesis of a brand that rises above the goods and services you provide
• Completely dominate a category

Every naming project is unique and our process is customized for each of them. We
make sure that all aspects of a work plan are designed to complement your naming
project, corporate culture, approval process and timeframe.

As with any plan, it's all about inspired execution.

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While we hold fast to the belief that every one of the six steps outlined in our process,
from an initial competitive analysis to final product or company names and taglines, is
vital to all naming projects, we understand that your marketing people may well have
worked through some of them before contacting us. Consequently, our process is
flexible enough to be tailored to the specific needs of your company.

Whether we are developing product or company names, the six steps outlined below
are what gives us the ability to create powerful and lasting brands:

1. Competitive Analysis – Our process begins with a thorough competitive analysis, in

which we quantify the tone and strength of competitive company names or product
names. Creating such a document helps your naming team decide where they need to
go with the positioning, branding and naming of your company or product.

2. Positioning – The next step is to help you refine and define your brand positioning.
The more specific and nuanced your positioning is, the more effective the name will be.
All great product and company names work in concert with the positioning of the
businesses they speak for.

3. Name/Brand Development – Product or company name development begins by

applying the positioning strategy to figure out what you want your new name to do for
your marketing, branding and advertising efforts.

4. Trademark – We prescreen names under development through our trademark

attorney to determine the likelihood that your company will be able to procure the
names. We do this in order to feel confident that the names your attorney submits for
final trademark screening and application have been deemed by an attorney as likely to
pass muster for registration. If not, valuable time is lost.

5. Creative/Testing – A standard part of our naming process is the production of

creative support materials to flesh-out potential names, and market research testing
when appropriate. These may include stories, ad treatments, or graphic layouts
featuring leading name candidates.

6. Name and Tagline – Final names and taglines, along with a well-defined positioning
strategy, are the outcome of our process.

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II. Executing the Six Process Points

To ensure that the name you choose is as dynamic, effective and fully leveraged as
possible, you need to have the right process in place. A process that is clear, insightful,
logical and focused will lead to a name and tagline that are powerful components of
your brand strategy, and pave the way for buy-in throughout your organization.

STEP 1: Competitive Analysis

A competitive analysis is an essential first step of any naming process. How are your
competitors positioning themselves? What types of names are common among them?
Are their names projecting a similar attitude? Do their similarities offer you a huge
opportunity to stand out from the crowd? How does your business or product differ from
the competition? How can a name help you define or redefine your brand? Can you
change and own the conversation in your industry? Should you?

Quantifying the tone and strength of competitive company names or product names is
an empowering foundation for any naming project. Creating such a document helps
your naming team decide where they need to go with the positioning, branding and
naming of your company or product. It also keeps the naming process focused on
creating a name that is a powerful marketing asset, one that works overtime for your
brand and against your competitors.

We display the results of a given sector of names in the form of taxonomy charts (see
below).

STEP 2: Positioning

Our next step is to help you refine and define your brand positioning. The more specific
and nuanced your positioning is, the more effective the name will be. All great names
work in concert with the positioning of the business or product they speak for. The best
positioning finds a way to reinvigorate or change the conversation that an industry has
been having with its consumers.

Our positioning process is predicated on understanding everything about your brand,

where it's been and where it's headed. The resulting naming process is based on
forward-looking positioning strategies -- yours, your competition's and your entire
sector's.

While it's important to understand what competitors are doing in order to act in a
distinctive and powerful way, it's also useful to learn from their mistakes and successes.

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For instance, the company that became Apple needed to distance itself from the cold,
unapproachable, complicated imagery created by the other computer companies at the
time that had names like IBM, NEC, DEC, ADPAC, Cincom, Dylakor, Input, Integral
Systems, Sperry Rand, SAP, PSDI, Syncsort, and Tesseract.

The new company needed to reverse the entrenched view of computers in order to get
people to use them at home. They were looking for a name that was unlike the names
of traditional computer companies, a name that also supported a brand positioning
strategy that was to be perceived as simple, warm, human, approachable and different.

Of course, once they had a clear positioning platform in place, there were still hundreds
of potential names for the new company to consider. The process for finding that one
perfect name is detailed in the next section.

STEP 3: Name / Brand Development

The first step in name development is deciding what you want your new name to do for
your marketing, branding and advertising efforts. Making this decision allows you to
narrow your name search to a certain category of name.

The relative strengths and weakness of the four major categories of names are
discussed in this section:

1. Functional / Descriptive Product & Company Names

When descriptive names work: When a company names products and their brand
strategy is to direct the bulk of brand equity to the company name. Examples of
companies that follow this name strategy are BMW, Martha Stewart and Subway.

When descriptive names don't work: When they are company names. Company
names that are descriptive are asked to perform only one task: explaining to the world
the business that you are in. This is an unnecessary and counterproductive choice.

The downside here is many-fold. This naming strategy creates a situation that
needlessly taxes a marketing and advertising budget because descriptive company
names are drawn from a small pool of relevant keywords, causing them to blend
together and fade into the background, indistinguishable from the bulk of their
competitors - the antithesis of marketing.

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As an example of the "brand fade out" caused by choosing descriptive company names,
consider the names of the following branding and naming companies:

Brand/Branding Companies Name/Naming Companies

Brand-DNA (.com) ABC Name Bank
Brand-DNA (.net) Brighter Naming
Brand A Moore Names
Brand 2.0 Name Development
Brand Design Name Evolution
Brand Doctors Name Generator
Brand Evolve Name-It
Brand Evolution Name Lab
Brand Forward Name One
Brand Juice Name Pharm
Brand Ladder Name Quest
Brand Link Name Razor
Brand Maverick Name Sale
Brand Mechanics Name Sharks
Brand Meta Name-Shop
Brand People Name Stormers
Brand Positioning Name Tag
Brand Salt Name Trade
Brand Scope Name Works
Brand Sequence Name Works
Brand Slinger Namebase
Brand Solutions Naming
Brand Vista Naming Systems
Independent Branding Naming Workshop
Not Just Any Branding Namington
The Better Branding Company Strategic Name Development
The Brand Company The Naming Company
The Brand Consultancy Wise Name

These kinds of company names are easily avoided if a thorough competitive analysis
is performed and if the people doing the naming understand the following basic concept:

The notion of describing a business in the name assumes that company names
will exist at some point without contextual support, which is impossible. Company
names will appear on websites, store fronts, in news articles or press releases,
on business cards, in advertisements, or, at their most naked, in conversations.

There are simply no imaginable circumstances in which company names can exist
without contextual, explanatory support, which means they are free to perform more
productive tasks.

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2. Invented Product & Corporation Names

There are basically two types of invented names for products or corporations:

1) Names built upon Greek and Latin roots. Examples: Acquient, Agilent,
Alliant, Aquent.

The upside:

• These names breeze through the trademark process because they are
unique, eliminating the potential for trademark conflict.
• For companies looking for a hassle-free way to secure a domain name
without a modifier, this is a fairly painless route to go.
• They are free of negative connotations.
• Because these names are built upon Greek and Latin morphemes,
they are felt to be serious sounding.
• For the above reasons, these are the easiest names to push through
the approval process at gigantic global corporations.

The downside:

• Because these types of names are built on Greek and Latin

morphemes, you need the advertising budget of a gigantic global
corporation to imbue them with meaning and get people to remember
them.
• While they don't carry any direct negative messages, such names do
cast a cold, sanitized persona.
• These are names with no potential marketing energy -- they are image-
free and emotionally void.

2) Poetically constructed names that are based on rhythm and the

experience of saying them. Examples: Snapple, Oreo, Google, Kleenex.

The upside:

• They breeze through the trademark process.

• Easy domain name acquisition.
• By design, the target audience likes saying these names, which helps
propel and saturate them throughout the target audience.
• Highly memorable.
• Emotionally engaging.
• They are rich with potential marketing energy.

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The downside:

• Tougher for a marketing department to get corporate approval for.

When making a case for a name based on things like "fun to say,
memorable, viral, and emotionally engaging," you need to present a
solid, quantifiable case. Igor can show you how.

3. Experiential Product & Corporate Names

Experiential names offer a direct connection to something real, to a part of direct human
experience. They rise above descriptive names because their message is more about
the experience than the task.

For instance, in the web portal space, descriptive product names include Infoseek,
GoTo, FindWhat, AllTheWeb, etc. Experiential names of web portals include such
product names as Explorer, Magellan, Navigator, and Safari.

The upside:

• These names make sense to the consumer.

• They map to the consumer's experience with the company or product.
• Because they require little explanation, experiential names are easily
approved in a corporate process.
• They work best for products within a brand strategy designed to accumulate
brand equity for both the company and the product.
• Experiential company and product names are most effective for the early
entrants in a business sector, becoming less effective for later adopters.

The downside:

• Because they are so intuitive, experiential names are embraced across many
industries with high frequency, making them harder to trademark.
• These are names that tend to be historically common in the branding world.
• Their over-usage makes them less effective in the long run. For instance,
while Explorer, Navigator and Safari are web portal names, they are also the
names of SUVs.
• The similarity in tone of these names across an industry is indicative of
similarities in positioning. As web portal names, Explorer, Navigator, Safari
and Magellan are all saying exactly the same things in exactly the same ways
to exactly the same people. Consequently, they aren't pulling any weight
when it comes to differentiating a brand.

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4. Evocative Product & Company Names

One important way that evocative names differ from others is that they evoke the
positioning of a company or product, rather than describing a function or a direct
experience.

Continuing with more examples of web portal company names:

InfoSeek, LookSmart = functional

Explorer, Navigator = experiential
Yahoo = positioning (Evocative)

Another example, from the airline sector:

Trans World Airlines = functional

United = experiential
Virgin = positioning (Evocative)

and finally, from the computer industry:

Digital Equipment = functional

Gateway = experiential
Apple = positioning (Evocative)

The upside:

• A rare type of name, making it a powerful differentiator.

• Nonlinear and multidimensional, making it deeply engaging.
• Helps create a brand image that is bigger than the goods and services a
company offers.
• Trademark process is better than average.
• When created in sync with positioning, it is a branding force that can
dominate an industry.

The downside:

• When created out of sync with brand positioning, it's an ugly mess.
• Because evocative product and company names are created to compliment
positioning rather than goods and services, they are the toughest type of
names to get corporate approval for, being a bit of an abstraction for those
outside the marketing department.

For advice on how to create and secure buy-in for evocative product and company
names, see the Naming Process Filters- Evocative Names, in the Naming Tools section
below.

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STEP 4: Trademark Prescreening of Names

During a naming project, our trademark attorneys prescreen the names that we
collectively identify as the strongest candidates to determine the likelihood that you will
be able to procure the names. We do this in order to feel confident that the names your
attorney submits for final trademark screening and application have been deemed by an
attorney as likely to pass muster for registration. If not, valuable time is lost.

The results of our trademark prescreen are presented in a grid format that not only
details whether or not a given name may be available to trademark in the particular
classes that concern your project, but also serves as an illuminating tool from a
marketing standpoint, showing which names/words/phrases have been over- or under-
used in your space.

Targeted TM Screen Example – Bio/Pharma1 Space: Below is an example of a

targeted trademark screen of two names from a project we completed recently in the
biotech/pharmaceutical industry (the actual names have been replaced with "Name1"
and "Name2" in this example).

Mark Level Level 2 Level 3 Level Level Level Potential Potential Comments
1 (Mark (Mark & (Mark & 4 5 6 for Use For Reg.
2
Only) Description Description (Mark (Mark (Mark (Limited/ (Limited/
of Gds/Srvcs of Gds/Srvcs & Int'l & Int'l & Int'l Likely/ Likely/
Including Including Class Class Class Maybe) Maybe)
"chemic$") "pharmac$") "5") "40") "42")
a b c d e
Name1 1444 23 2 51 6 70 Maybe Maybe Some of the marks listed below, while not an
exact match to the contemplated goods, are close
f g h
Name2 122 1 0 1 0 17 Likely Likely Mark arbitrary with respect to contemplated goods

1
The contemplated goods are chemical and compounds for research and laboratory use and pharmaceuticals and compounds to treat humans and
animals.

2
This search constitutes a preliminary clearance search only. This search is not meant as a comprehensive trademark availability search nor is this
search and grid meant to provide an opinion regarding whether a trademark is or is not available for use and registration. It should be noted that this
search was performed using the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s website only. No guarantees can be made regarding the data being up to date,
as that is outside the scope of our control. It should also be noted that the search performed was for the exact mark only. No search was authorized
or performed regarding rotating the order of words, plurals, cross-references, or meanings of words. Thus, additional phrases or marks may have a
bearing on any full trademark availability search to be performed. It is our recommendation that, should any mark be chosen, a full use and registration
availability search be performed and a qualified opinion regarding the results of that search be obtained.

a Eleven of the trademarks are abandoned or canceled. The remaining trademarks are used in connection with services in the field of applying
chemicals to lawns and turf; chemical feed pumps; water retention chemical substance; chemical protective clothing; waterproofing chemical
compositions; fabric for use with chemical workers; Chemical products for commercial purposes, namely, basic and intermediate chemicals for use in
the manufacture of cosmetic and personal care products; Chemical research and chemistry consulting services in the area of cosmetic and personal
care products and basic and intermediate products therefore; and Chemicals for solidifying fluid waste to aid in the disposal of fluid waste

b Both of these trademarks are abandoned or canceled; however they were used in connection with pharmaceutical and medicinal preparations for the
treatment of gastric and duodenal ulcers, reflux oesophagitis, and gastritis and complete line of pharmaceutical preparations.

c Twenty-one of the trademarks have been abandoned or canceled. The remaining trademarks are used in connection with goods such as air
fresheners, pet products, medicated livestock feed supplements, herbal dietary supplements, odor neutralizing preparations, condom lubricant,
fungicides, insecticides, herbicides and pesticides, Skin care preparations, douches, vitamins and nutritional supplements, all purpose cleaning
preparations, carpet fresheners, Horticultural products, namely potting soil, fertilizer, soil amendments and supplements and plant food, all containing
wetting agent, cosmetics, perfume, cologne; toilet water.

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d Two of the trademarks are abandoned or canceled. The remaining trademarks are used in connection with waterproofing services, digital imaging
services, and material treatment in the nature of applying protective coatings to corks, corks for bottles, corks for wines and sparkling wines.

e Twenty-seven trademarks have been abandoned or canceled. The remaining trademarks are used in connection with services such as services in
the field of applying chemicals to lawns, promoting public awareness, landscape gardening design, information dissemination, designing and printing
banners and display prints for others from computer data, restaurant services, retail floral shop services, graphic design services, telephone hotline
counseling, resort lodging, computer services, Software development and consulting services, Design and printing of advertising and marketing
materials for others, retail in-person and telephone order services, providing online publications, horse farm services, health spa services, Search
engine services for electronic communications networks, creating and providing proprietary digital terrain elevation software models and related data
requests in the field of terrain mapping, water storage tanks and pump systems.

f This trademark is used in connection with chemicals for melting ice and snow.

g This trademark is used in connection with herbal teas.

h Eleven of the trademarks were abandoned or canceled. The remaining trademarks are used in connection with restaurant services, day care centers
and counseling, spa services, and Computer software design for others.

STEP 5: Creative / Testing

These are tasks that are constantly performed throughout our process. However, near
the end of every project it comes time decide which of the leading name candidates will
best serve our clients.

At this point, the job is to exhaustively and specifically flesh out the relative strengths of
each name. We present names with a range of taglines and contextual positioning
support in the form of print ads or commercial treatments. This presentation is key to
helping everyone involved understand how a given product or company name could
work in your marketing and advertising campaigns. It lifts the naming process out of the
realm of theory and breathes life into the names, a vital step in the decision-making
process.

These same materials are designed to work seamlessly for any focus group testing or
market research that you feel is necessary. We can advise you and/or run the testing
phase for you if you wish. And we have extensive experience presenting positioning,
brand strategies, names and taglines to boards of directors.

Here is a sampling of some of the many contextual support images created during the
course of Igor's Tickle project (images blurred to respect photo rights):

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STEP 6: Names and Taglines

Once a name is chosen, we more fully develop a range of taglines, images and
language that help you pinpoint the most effective, perfectly nuanced personality with
which to present your name.

A key point at this stage is exploring how different taglines and collateral can shift and
enhance the efficacy of your name and brand. For example, here are a few ad lines and
taglines that the name Igor brings to the table:

Igor. Get over the hump.

Igor. A few spare parts and a good storm. (The ingredients of all innovation.)
Igor. Throw the switch.
Igor. Bringing your vision to life.
Igor. A Moveable Beast.
Igor. Own your shadow.
Igor. Talk of the town.
Igor. No job too horrifying.
Igor. The other white meat.
Igor. Never say die.
Igor. A good brain is hard to find.
Igor. Alive.
Igor. Better living through science.
Igor. Building the perfect beast.

And on and on and on. When deciding between names for your own project, go ahead
and make a list of taglines for each potential name. It will make the decision-making
process crystal clear, because if you can't get inspired by a particular name, your
customers aren't likely to.

One of the most important things that the best brands accomplish is being thought of as
greater than the goods and services offered. Nike's "Just Do It" helps them rise above
selling sneakers. Apple's "Think Different" is bigger than computers. Fannie Mae's
"We're in the American Dream Business" elevates them from mere mortgage brokers.

Like names, taglines come in four flavors. Sometimes it makes sense for an evocative
name to be launched with a functional tagline, migrating to an evocative tagline over
time. The specifics of your business, where it is going, and the state of your industry will
define which of the many different combinations of types of name and types of tagline
will be most effective.

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III. NAMING TOOLS

A. Naming Process Filters – Evocative Names

One of the keys to successful company and product naming is understanding exactly
how your audience will interact with a new name. Creating a filter that evaluates names
in the same way that your target market will is essential to both creating the best name
possible and to getting that name approved and implemented by your company. Since
an evocative name is one of the toughest to develop and obtain buy-in for, we've
detailed one of the necessary filters here.

The biggest challenge that evocative names (see page 7 above) face in surviving a
naming exercise is the fact that they portray the positioning of a company or product
rather than the goods and services or the experience of those goods and services.
Unless everyone understands the positioning and the correlation between it and an
evocative name, this is the type of feedback that evocative names will generate:

Virgin Airlines

• Says "we're new at this"

• Public wants airlines to be experienced, safe and professional
• Investors won’t take us seriously
• Religious people will be offended

Caterpillar

• Tiny, creepy-crawly bug

• Not macho enough – easy to squash
• Why not "bull" or "workhorse"?
• Destroys trees, crops, responsible for famine

Banana Republic

• Derogatory cultural slur

• You'll be picketed by people from small, hot countries

Yahoo!

• Yahoo!! It's Mountain Dew!

• Yoohoo! It’s a chocolate drink in a can!
• Nobody will take stock quotes and world news seriously from a bunch of
"Yahoos"

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Oracle

• Unscientific
• Unreliable
• Only foretold death and destruction
• Only fools put their faith in an Oracle
• Sounds like "orifice" – people will make fun of us

The Gap

• Means something is missing

• The Generation Gap is a bad thing – we want to sell clothes to all generations
• In need of repair
• Incomplete
• Negative

Stingray

• A slow, ugly, and dangerous fish – slow, ugly and dangerous are the last
qualities we want to associate with our fast, powerful, sexy sports car
• The "bottom feeding fish" part isn't helping either

Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac

• I don't want hillbilly residents of Dogpatch handling my finances.

• They don't sound serious, and this is about a very serious matter.

Clearly, the public doesn't think about names in this fashion, but internal naming
committees almost always do. Getting a committee to acknowledge this difference and
to interact as the public does is step one.

Having the naming committee evaluate evocative names based on their positioning is
the next step:

Virgin

• Positioning: different, confident, exciting, alive, human, provocative, fun. The

innovative name forces people to create a separate box in their head to put it in.
• Qualities: Self-propelling, Connects Emotionally, Personality, Deep Well.

Oracle

• Positioning: different, confident, superhuman, evocative, powerful, forward

thinking.
• Qualities: Self-propelling, Connects Emotionally, Personality, Deep Well.

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B. Name Taxonomy Charts

• Accounting / Business Services • Search Engine, Browser and Web Portal

Names Names
• Airline Names • Social Network Names
• Biotech / Pharmaceutical Names • Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV) Names
• Computer Port Technology Names • Sweet Snack Food Names
• Juice Names • Toothpaste Names
• Margarine Names

Taxonomy of Accounting and Business Services Names

As usual, and as you might expect, most of the accounting firms, tax accountants, CPAs, accounting
software products, payroll and business services companies on this list have lower-level functional
names. Which was fine for us, because once again here was an industry with few names or primary
messages that stood out from the pack, allowing for our work to differentiate itself all the more powerfully.

FUNCTIONAL INVENTED EXPERIENTIAL EVOCATIVE

5 Vanilla 5

4 Quicken 4

3 Quickbooks Peachtree 3

Fidelity
2 Paychex 2
Intuit

Intaact
Interacct
1 By the Book 1
Invisible Accountant
Real Tax

ADP (Automatic
Data
Processing)
AmeriPay Advantage Payroll
0 H&R Block Services 0
Intax Exult
KPMG
Mellon
TedTax

Arthur Anderson Accounta Co-Advantage

BDO Seidman Advanco Resources
-1 -1
Bhatia & Co. Ceridian Precise Accounting
Deloitte Touche Perquest Smart Pros

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Tohmatsu Accounting
Ernst & Young
GMN International
Grant Thornton
Harrod CPA
Group
Hewitt Associates
LOR Management
Services
Mazars Group
Moss Adams
Pricewaterhouse
Coopers
Simmons &
Assoc.
Wertz & Co.
Wright, Ford,
Young & Co.

Accounting Group
Cyber Financial
Solutions
On Line
Accountant
PayMaxx
-2 Payroll 1 -2
Payroll Online
Small Business
Solutions
SurePayroll
Tax-Ease
US Tax Help

FUNCTIONAL INVENTED EXPERIENTIAL EVOCATIVE

Levels of Engagement: These eight levels (y-axis levels from minus 2 to plus 5) represent the amount of material (meaning,
stories, associations, imagery, multiple layers) in a name the audience has to play with and personalize – and how "engaged" they
are by a name. Names in the minus 2 level are the least engaging, and likely to be quickly forgotten; the higher the number the
better, with level 5 being the best.

Functional Names: The lowest common denominator of names, usually either named after a person, purely descriptive of what the
company or product does, or a pre- or suffixed reference to functionality. (Infoseek, LookSmart)

Invented Names: "Invented" as in a made-up name (Acquient, Agilent, Alliant, Google) or a non-English name that is not widely
known.

Experiential Names: A direct connection to something real, a part of direct human experience. Usually literal in nature, but
presented with a touch of imagination. (Netscape, Palm Pilot)

Evocative Names: These names are designed to evoke the positioning of a company or product rather than the goods and
services or the experience of those goods and services. Removed from direct experience, but relevant – evoking memories, stories,
and many levels of association. (Virgin, Apple, Cracker Jack)

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Taxonomy of Airline Names

Before Virgin came along, all the airlines had the same kind of name: either Functional names that were
descriptive of the region they fly over (Northwest, Southwest, American, etc.), or Experiential names that
tried to speak to a higher aspiration (United, Vanguard). Along came Virgin into an industry without any
strong, evocative brands, setting the bar higher than probably any other name in any industry. Now new
airline names have begun to enter the fray in the space created between Virgin and the rest of the pack.

FUNCTIONAL INVENTED EXPERIENTIAL EVOCATIVE

5 Virgin 5

Ted
4 JetBlue 4
Jazz

Hooters
3 Aloha 3
Olympic

Go Song
2 Qantas* 2
Zip Frontier

1 Alitalia Vanguard Tower Air 1

Midway
Trans World
Pan American
Delta
Continental
0 United 0
American
Alaska
AeroMexico
Air France
British Airways

Northwest
Southwest
U.S. Airways
-1 -1
Eastern
America West
World Airways

Express Jet
ValueJet
-2 -2
AirJet
EasyJet

FUNCTIONAL INVENTED EXPERIENTIAL EVOCATIVE

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* Qantas is actually an acronym for "Queensland And Northern Territory Air Service." However, we're
classifying the name as Invented rather than Functional because most people do not know what Qantas
stands for, it is not written all in upper case as most acronyms are, it is longer than most acronyms, and
indeed, it has been successfully branded as an entity in itself, not for what it may stand for, which in fact
is never even mentioned.

Taxonomy of Biotech and Pharmaceutical Names

The Biotech / Pharmaceutical industries are ripe for a great, high-level evocative name to surge to the
head of the pack. As you can see by the taxonomy below, most companies in this space are clustered
together with either functional (Amgen, Biogen, Curagen) or Experiential (Incyte, Xcyte, Paradigm,
Aradigm) names that offer very little in the way of audience engagement.

The names that rise to the top of this chart do so because they are different, but most importantly
because they are different for a good reason. These companies are using their names to distance
themselves from the negative baggage that exists in their industry in the same way that Merck and ADM
are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to assure the public that they are not cold and uncaring, and
are working with nature rather than against it. Further, these names help distance these few companies
from the "GenGen"* names that conjure memories of lost investments.

For more, see our article Better Naming Through Chemistry.

[* "GenGen" is our term for all of the "me too" company names that begin or end in "gen" in the biotech /
pharmaceutical sector.]

FUNCTIONAL INVENTED EXPERIENTIAL EVOCATIVE

5 5

4 4

3 3

Blue Heron
Cypress
Guava
2 Life Technologies 2
Nektar
Orchid
Torrent

Cubist Argonaut
The Great American Discovery Labs. Copernicus
1 Daji Biosciences 1
Gene Company Evolutionary Isis
Genomics Lynx

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Icon Onyx
Lexicon Titan
Pilot Trinity
Quantum
Biotechnologies

Affinity BioReagents
Bayer
Arena
Berlex
Caliper
Bristol-Myers
Chiron Cor
Squibb Keystone
0 Idexx LifeSpan 0
GlaxoSmithKline Laboratories
Irazu BioSciences
Lilly
Memory
Merck
Pain
Pfizer
Panacea

3-D Pharma.
Abgenix
Albany Molecular
Adolor
Research
Affymetrix
Aradigm
AGY
Array
Alios
Avant
Arcaris
Boston Life
Arqule
Sciences
AstraZeneca
British Biotech
Aventis
Collateral
CHIMERx
Connectics
Corixa
Diversa
Cygnus
Elitra
Applied Molecular Cytrx
Ergo Science
Evolution Dyax
Essential
Bio Science Elitra
Hawaii Biotech.
Contract Production Exiqon
Illumina
Human Genome Embrex
Incyte
Sciences Enzon
-1 Inspire -1
Large Scale Biology Hyseq
Molecular Devices Integrated
Icos
Pharmacia Biomolecule
Idun
Protein Design Labs Integrated DNA
Nabi
Protein Pathways Technologies
Nobex
Protein Sciences Kinetix
Novex
La Jolla Pharma.
Novartis
Matrix
Oxis
Millenium
PanVera
Myriad Genetics
Promega
New Century
Telik
Northwest Bio.
Tanox
Paradigm Genetics
Tripos
Prototek
Tularik
Texas
Valentis
Biotechnology
Vistra
Triangle
Vysis
Visible Genetics
Xoma
Xcyte

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Alpha Diagnostic
Alpha DNA
Amgen
Avigen
Bio Tech. General
Biocryst
Biogen
Biogenex
Biomarin
BioMedicines
Biomira
BioNumerik
Biopure
Bioreliance
BioStratum
Bio-Synthesis
Biotime
Biotransplant
Biotrin
Celera Genomics
Celgene
Cell Genesys
Cell Pathways
Cell Therapeutics
Cellegy
Cholestech
Ciphergen
Clontech
Collagenex
Curagen
Cyanotech
Cytogen
-2 Deltagen
-2
Depomed
Digene
Ecogen
Entremed
Envirogen
Exegenics
Galagen
Genaera
Gene Logic
Gene Tools
Genecor
Genelabs
Genentech
Genetics Institute
GeneTrol
Genetronics
Genome
Genomic Solutions
Genosys
Genox
Genset
Genteric
GenVec
Genzyme
Geron
Igen
Imclone Systems
Immtech
Immucell
Immucor
Immunex

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Immunogen
Immunomedics
Imune Response
Insmed
Intracel
Introgen
Invitrogen
Lifecell
LigoChem
Maxygen
Medarex
Medimmune
Meiogen
Metabasis
Metabolex
MetaMorphix
Microbia
Millipore
MitoKor
Myogen
Nanogen
Neopharm
NeuralStem
Neurocrine
Neurogen
Neuron
Nexell
Nitromed
Novagen
Orapharma
Origen
Otogene
Oxigene
Pepceuticals LTD
Pharmacopeia
Pharmacyclics
Pharmadyne
Pharmasset
Pharmos
ProdiGene
Progenics
Repligen
Research Genetics
Supergen
Synthegen
Transgene
Transgenomic
Transkaryotic
TransMolecular
TransTech
UroGenesys
Vaxgen
Virologic
Viropharma
VistaGen
Zonagen

FUNCTIONAL INVENTED EXPERIENTIAL EVOCATIVE

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Taxonomy of Computer Port Technology Consumer Product Names

Comparing the names of computer networking technologies, peripheral device ports and the devices that love them.

FUNCTIONAL INVENTED EXPERIENTIAL EVOCATIVE

Airport
5 5
FireWire

4 Wi-Fi 4

3 Bluetooth * 3

Full Metal Card

2 Clik! 2
Magic Gate

Bullet Drive
Aerocard ClipperCom
1 JumpDrive 1
iLink Credit Card
Star Card

CompactFlash
Linx
Memory Stick
Cruzer
0 Micro Vault Pyro 0
ExpressCard
Microdrive
Turbo Flash
USB

Aopen
Busport
Easidock
Easyshare Linear
Hi-Phone
-1 Navman -1
Megahertz
PCI RealPort
PCXpocket
SmartSwitch
SwapSmart

802.11a
802.11b
802.11g Cyber
-2 Netelligent -2
CARDport CyberExpress
IEEE 1394
PCMCIA

FUNCTIONAL INVENTED EXPERIENTIAL EVOCATIVE

* Bluetooth: Harald I Bluetooth (Danish Harald Blåtand) was the King of Denmark between 940 and 985 AD.
However, since most non-Danes probably aren't familiar with this bit of history, we are treating the name as Invented.
The history behind the name does provide a story to tell, giving the name greater depth, and thus a higher ranking,
than it would if it were just a random pairing such as Blue Martini.

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Taxonomy of Juice Names

If you're looking for a juicy name taxonomy, you've come to the right page. Here is our competitive
analysis name taxonomy of juice brand names. Fresh sqeezed, and all the usual metaphors.

For more juicy branding material, see our article about Juice Branding.

FUNCTIONAL INVENTED EXPERIENTIAL EVOCATIVE

5 Snapple 5

Odwalla
POM
4 Sunkist Naked 4
Tropicana
V8

3 Simply Orange Ocean Spray 3

Dole After the Fall

Clamato
2 Mott's MinuteMaid Crystal Geyser 2
SoBe
Welch's Nantucket Nectars

Apple Time
Florida's Natural Capri Sun
Qoo
1 Hawaii's Own Sunsweet Northland 1
Vruit
Santa Cruz Tree Top
Texsun

Hansen's
Kerns
Freshers
0 Langers Kedem 0
Treesweet
Martinelli's
RW Knudsen

-1 Good Day -1

-2 -2

FUNCTIONAL INVENTED EXPERIENTIAL EVOCATIVE

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Taxonomy of Margarine Names

If you thought that margarines -- aka "butter substitutes" -- existed in a parallel universe, you were right!
Here is our competitive analysis name taxonomy of margarine brand names. Eat your heart out.

FUNCTIONAL INVENTED EXPERIENTIAL EVOCATIVE

5 5

4 4

Blue Bonnet
3 Parkay 3
Land O Lakes

2 Butter Buds Olivio Willow Run 2

Chiffon
Canola Harvest Earth Balance
1 Saffola Country Crock 1
Soy Garden Smart Balance
Imperial

I Can't Believe It's

0 Veggie Butter Romi Not Butter 0
Move Over Butter

Brummel and Brown Nucoa Promise

-1 -1
Fleishman Nuvel Pure

-2 Benecol Take Control -2

FUNCTIONAL INVENTED EXPERIENTIAL EVOCATIVE

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Taxonomy of Search Engine, Browser and Web Portal Names

Here are some names you may be familiar with in the Internet industry. Note how many search engines
went with Functional names that include the words "search/seek" or "crawler/spider".

FUNCTIONAL INVENTED EXPERIENTIAL EVOCATIVE

5 Yahoo! 5

4 Google 4

3 Safari 3

Explorer Magellan
2 Firefox 2
Navigator Northern Light

Ask Jeeves
Excite
1 Mozilla Camino 1
Netscape
Snap

altavista Mamma
0 Cyberdog Dogpile Opera 0
Fathead Overture

AOL Alexa
GoTo Inktomi *
HotBot Lycos goHip iCab
-1 -1
ICQ Teoma mySimon Rex
MSN Thunderstone
Open Directory WiseNut

AllTheWeb
Cyber411
FindWhat.com
InfiniSearch
Infoseek
InfoTiger
LookSmart
MegaSpider
-2 MetaGopher -2
MonsterCrawler
Planet Search
QuestFinder
SavvySearch
Search King
SearchPort
SuperCrawler
WebCrawler

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What-U-Seek

FUNCTIONAL INVENTED EXPERIENTIAL EVOCATIVE

* Inktomi: In Lakota mythology, Iktomi is a spider-trickster god, and a culture-hero for the Lakota people.
But since most people don't know that (or care), we are treating it as an Invented name. And besides, the
"spider/crawler" metaphor has been pretty thoroughly mined by search engines.

Social Networks Name Taxonomy

Social networks have existed on the web for some time in the form of discussion groups, online
communities, bulletin boards, webrings and matchmaking services. This chart is confined to rating the
names of the new breed of social networks, those that leverage many levels of relationships in the form of
"a friend of a friend."

FUNCTIONAL INVENTED EXPERIENTIAL EVOCATIVE

5 Tickle 5

Ringo (purchased
4 by Tickle) 4
Tribe

3 Friendster Six Degrees 3

2 Live Journal 2

ICQ
Match.com
1 Meetup Ryze Spoke Software 1
Spotme
Visible Path

Craigslist
Lunch Partners
0 Sona 0
RealContacts
Upcoming.org

CAN (Community
Action Network) Alpha3 InCircle
Affinity Engines
Classmates Orkut PlanetAll
itsnotwhatyouknow
-1 Ecademy Plaxo POP (People on -1
WhizSpark
EveryonesConnected Squiby Page)
Evite ZeroDegrees TheSquare
Yafro
Friendspot

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FriendSurfer
Friendzy
LinkedIn
myspace
PayDemocracy
RealContacts

2ofaKind.com
AnotherFriend.com
Contact Network
Huminity
-2 Corporation -2
Semaview
ManyOne
people2people
PeopleAggregator

FUNCTIONAL INVENTED EXPERIENTIAL EVOCATIVE

Taxonomy of Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV) Names

This chart of SUV names reveals a singular positioning strategy that permeates most of the brand names
in this industry, resulting in the bulk of these names being assigned low marks on this scale. It's not that
the names themselves are poor. Rather, it's because the names don't help to differentiate one vehicle
from another; many of them are variations on the same theme (rugged, outdoorsy) and not pulling any
marketing weight. Why does Suburban rate an elevated position? Because it's the most refreshingly
different and honest name in the Experiential category.

FUNCTIONAL INVENTED EXPERIENTIAL EVOCATIVE

5 Jeep 5

4 4

3 Suburban 3

Hummer
2 Jackaroo Element 2
Jeepster

Amigo Avalanche
1 Xterra Aviator Cayenne 1
Sidekick Safari

Land Cruiser Blazer Armada

0 Overland Unimog Discovery Frontier 0
Range Rover Defender Highlander

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Pathfinder Escape Matrix

TrailBlazer Excursion Passport
Expedition Samurai
Travelall
Explorer Silverado
Forester Tundra
Freelander Typhoon
Mountaineer
Navigator
Scout
Tracker
Trooper
Wrangler

Aztek
Bordeux
Bronco
Cherokee
Comanche
Durango
Kahuna
Montana
Montero
Envoy
Murano
4Runner Grand Vitara Liberty
-1 Navaho -1
Rav4 Korando Rendezvous
Rainier
Tribute Rodeo
Santa Fe
Sequoia
Sonoma
Sorento
Tacoma
Tahoe
Touareg
Yukon

CR-V
EVX
EX
LX 470
MDX
Bravada
ML55 Terracross
-2 Escalade Axiom -2
QX4 VehiCROSS
Sportage
SLX
SRX
X5
XC90
XL-7

FUNCTIONAL INVENTED EXPERIENTIAL EVOCATIVE

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Taxonomy of Sweet Snack Food Names

The names of snack foods are tough to rank in an unbiased way. Our perceptions of snack food
names are deeply influenced by emotional connections to the products formed at an early age.

FUNCTIONAL INVENTED EXPERIENTIAL EVOCATIVE

Jell-O Cracker Jack

5 5
Oreo Moon Pie

Cool Whip
Fiddle Faddle
Ding Dongs
Fig Newtons
4 Pop Tarts Hobnobs 4
Nutter Butter
Pinwheels
Twinkies
Sweetie Pie

Cameo
Cloud Nine
Grasshoppers
3 Spotted Dick Chips Ahoy! Honey Maid 3
Little Schoolboy
RingDings
Sno Ball

Barnum's Animals
Hit Pepperidge Farm
Nilla Vanilla
2 Krispy Kreme Suzy Q's 2
Wafers
Mystic Mints Zebra Cakes
Zoot Fruits

Animal Crackers Mallomars Famous Amos

Boulder Brownies
Biscos Peak Frean Ginger Snaps
Britannia
Bunny Biscuits Ruggers Wafers Kozy Shack
1 Hostess 1
Cafe Creams Sandies Mother's
Stella D'oro
SnackWell's Screaming Yellow Poppycock
Vienna Fingers
Teddy Grahams Zonkers Tastykake

Chewly
ChipsChoc Chippy Chips
Crispin
Cookie Stix
Grandma's Little Debbie
0 Cup O' Jelly 0
Lucky Rolls Lorna Doone
Fruit By The Foot Pecan Passion
Pecanz Pop'ems
Snackin' Grahams

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E.L. Fudge
Marshmallow
Twirls
Mini Butter Puff
Fruitsations Munch'ems
-1 Peanut Puff -1
Otis Spunkmeyer My*T*Fine
Soft Batch
Sugar Wafers
Toaster Pastries
Wafer Rolls

Hydrox
-2 -2
Droxies

FUNCTIONAL INVENTED EXPERIENTIAL EVOCATIVE

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Taxonomy of Toothpaste Names

When you Reach for those Pearl Drops to give your mouth an Ultra Bright Super Smile, is your Sure
Choice based solely on what will make you the most attractive Close-Up, or is it Ultrabright branding
that's taking Aim at you as if yours were the First Teeth to Crest the tide of Oral-B(eauty)?

Here are some toothpaste brand names that put their branding money where your mouth is. This list does
not include all the large brands that have many different health and beauty products of which toothpaste
is but one.

FUNCTIONAL INVENTED EXPERIENTIAL EVOCATIVE

5 5

4 Pearl Drops 4

3 Ultrabright Aquafresh Crest 3

2 Oral-B Pepsodent 2
Rembrandt

Sensodyne
1 Gleem Close-Up 1
Topol

Colgate
First Teeth Auromere
Janina Aim
0 NutriSmile 0
Peelu Reach
Power Smile Vicco
Super Smile

Homeodent
Listerine
Mentadent Sure Choice Apothecary
-1 Plus+White -1
Orohyi Complete Care Kingfisher
Viadent
Zooth

Healthy Mouth Biotene

-2 -2
Natural Dentist Boiron

FUNCTIONAL INVENTED EXPERIENTIAL EVOCATIVE

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Blank Name Taxonomy Chart

Here is a blank name taxonomy chart you can print. Try plotting your and your competition's product or
company names on this chart and see how they sort out.

FUNCTIONAL INVENTED EXPERIENTIAL EVOCATIVE

5 5

4 4

3 3

2 2

1 1

0 0

-1 -1

-2 -2

FUNCTIONAL INVENTED EXPERIENTIAL EVOCATIVE

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IV. Studies in Naming

A. Allstream – the perils of overused language
B. Avlimil – an unusual but effective brand positioning strategy
C. Better Naming Through Chemistry – naming and branding in the medical,
biotech, and pharmaceutical industries
D. Chrysler Crossfire – considering names from the consumer's point of view
E. IBM's T-Rex – code names vs. "official names"
F. Pepperidge Farm – a wonderful job of creating evocative product names
G. Silk – great consumer product name creation in action

A. Company Name Change: We All Stream for Allstream

In mid-2003, AT&T Canada changed its name to Allstream. The new company name is
explained on the Allstream website:

Allstream is a new beginning for a new company. Our name change from AT&T
Canada signals our new status as a fully independent company with a fresh new
outlook. We understand that the continuous flow of information that travels
through networks is more than just data - it's the value people create.

We are now focused more than ever on providing communication solutions that
enable your company to communicate, collaborate and compete more effectively.

Unfortunately, the communication solution they chose for themselves neither

communicates or competes effectively. A cursory search for other corporations in the
digital information sector with "stream" in their names turns up:

Stream, CapitalStream, On Stream, I-Stream, Bean-Stream, Silver Stream, Rapid

Stream, Stream Theory, Health Stream, Digital Stream, Island Stream, Stream Down,
Stream Logic, Streamlogics, Data Stream, Stream Soft, Jet Stream, Stream Software,
Metric Stream, Packet Stream, Stream Box, Vital Stream, Code Stream and X-Stream
Audio.

The use of words such as "stream" that have already reached saturation in the culture
illustrates why we begin all projects with a thorough competitive analysis, to not only
understand which potential product or company name directions have been mined
already in a given sector, but to quantify the language usage in all relevant messaging.

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B. Avlimil – Gilt by Association

Viagra's successful sexual conquest of the male organ has spawned a flood of products
designed to spread the joy in the opposite direction. The best-named Female Sexual
Dysfunction remedy by far is Niagara – it's powerful, wet, and funny, just like good sex.
And it obviously parries well the thrust of the name "Viagra."

But now there's is a new girl in town, and she is taking a far more clinical approach to
seduction. Her come-hither moniker? Avlimil. Sure it's cold, inhuman and unmemorable,
but then we've all "dated" someone like that.

Actually it's part of a unique strategy erected to whet your appetite for Avlimil and
elevate it above the others vying for your attention.

You see, Niagara and Avlimil are both herbal remedies. But while Niagara is proud and
confident of who it is, Avlimil is trying to sound like "serious" prescription medicine. And
it's not just the name. In the TV commercial the fidgety female spokesperson – in a clear
reference to the drug Viagra – says, "Men have their little blue pill, and now we have
ours." The illusion is furthered in the packaging:

And what does the mysterious descriptor "(salvia rubus) tablets" mean? Salvia comes
from the Latin salveo, meaning "I am well," and an herb, Salvia, used for healing, while
rubus is Latin for bramble or berry. It's apothecary-speak for sage and raspberry leaf,
Avlimil's main ingredients. The whole campaign is well thought out and deftly executed
to fully leverage the success and mind-share of Viagra.

C. Better Naming Through Chemistry

Prescription drug names are usually made-up words because of trademark and FDA
regulatory concerns, but there is another reason: Gravitas (fear), the real or perceived
need to have a name appear "serious sounding."

Historically, every business sector begins life with a tightly-drawn nomenclature box,
departure from which is seen as foolhardy. Eventually, however, a company ventures
outside of the comfort zone, is hugely rewarded, and the rest follow. Well-known
examples of industry-changing company names include Virgin (Airline industry), Fannie
Mae (Financial), Apple (Computers/Technology) and Yahoo (Web). The breakout

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usually happens when the messaging gets stale and ineffectual and/or when negative
baggage in an industry reaches critical mass.

The medical / biotech / pharmaceutical space is one of the last holdouts, but two sides
of the triangle have recently given way.

Medical Devices Break Out

A couple of years ago the medical device manufacturer Medtronic introduced a vacuum
cardiac stabilizer called "Octopus," an evocative, intuitive name that referenced the
arms and suction elements of the device. The announcement of the name brought
laughter and derisive comments from competitors in the industry. At the time, Guidant's
competitive product was called "Axius," a typical Greek/Latinate morphemic-constructed
name common to surgical equipment.

The Octopus name began showing up in lectures and in quotes from surgeons in
articles, even when the Guidant Axius was the product being referenced. In just a few
short years, Octopus has become the default name for all similar cardiac stabilizers,
much like FedEx, Kleenex, Xerox, etc. became synonymous with their products. Without
employing a huge marketing budget, Medtronic captured the hearts and minds of their
target audience and made it impossible for anyone to steal them back, no matter how
many advertising dollars were thrown at the problem. The long-standing wisdom (fear)
that a surgical device needed a "serious sounding" name to appeal to surgeons had
been laid to waste. Medtronic has proven that, contrary to popular belief, surgeons are
human. Shocking.

Guidant was not only determined not to let this happen again, they wanted a name that
would be a category-killer for the new product they were soon to release. Our
assignment was to come up with a name that would achieve common, default usage. A
name that would, pardon the pun, spread virally. And thus "Heartstring" was born, and
did just that.

The Heartstring is a coiled string that is used in place of a clamp when making a graft to
the aorta during heart surgery. Besides being descriptive, we chose Heartstring
because it has a secondary emotional context, and because when the procedure is
complete the surgeon simply "tugs on the Heartstring" to uncoil and remove it from the
aorta. Since the name had three points of connectivity with the audience, we knew the
chances were great of it attaining the Holy Grail of default usage. And indeed it has.

Biopharma Heals Thyself

The second leg of the triangle, Biotech / Pharmaceutical company names, began to
quiver recently with the advent of names like Guava, Nektar, Blue Heron, Cypress and
Orchid. These companies are using their names to distance themselves from the
negative baggage that exists in their industry in the same way that Merck and ADM are
spending hundreds of millions of dollars to assure the public that they are not cold and

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uncaring, and are working with nature rather than against it, a la Frankenfood.

It's only a matter of time until the names of drugs begin to reflect the understanding that
the right name can be a cost-effective, market dominating force.

While names like Prozac and Vicadin are interchangeable, as are Claritin and Zoloft,
other names like Viagra and Wellbutrin have begun to shift the trend with abstractly
inferential benefit imagery. Look for this trend to accelerate as every combination of "X"
and "Z" names saturate the marketplace with sound-alike morphemic mouthfuls.

D. High Performance Naming – Chrysler Crossfire

Chrysler's hot new sports coupe, the Crossfire, has a name that does justice to the car's
edgy, explosive looks. Clearly, the marketing department had an extraordinary naming
process in place, as well as the insight and fortitude required to get such a controversial
name approved in an organization as large as Chrysler.

Imagine the feedback when the name was tested: Isn't it dangerous to get caught in a
crossfire? Don't people get killed in a crossfire? Don't we want people to think our car is
safe? It's the name of a TV show, why not pick something unique?

Chrysler understood that consumers don't participate in this kind of literal, negative
deconstruction, but rather accept things in the context provided. The failure to recognize
this simple truth is what dooms other automakers to give sexy sports cars androgynous
names like; M5, S4, 28O Z, SC 430 and C32 AMG.

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E. IBM's T-Rex Computer Name

Bang a Gong? Maybe. In May 2003 IBM announced a new mainframe computer. As is
often the case with high-tech products, the computer has a great code name and a less
than inspiring official name. Time will shortly tell which name prevails. From Geek.com:

IBM is set to unveil T-Rex, the code name for its latest and greatest mainframe
computer. The new system will boast more powerful processors, new memory, and an
updated operating system. This is the first major upgrade to IBM's mainframe system
since 2000.

T-Rex's official name is the eServer zSeries 990, and it boasts up to 32 processors, all
of which can be added to the machine's processing capacity on the fly. With an almost
tripling of capacity over its closest sibling, T-Rex can "process 450 million e-business
transactions a day, or can manage hundreds of virtual Linux servers," according to IBM.
T-Rex will start at US$1 million, but there will be four available models by the beginning
of November 2003.

Though even the word "mainframe" sounds outdated, the systems comprise over 40%
of IBM's profits. The target companies for the machines are large banks, retailers, and
insurance companies whose current code will only run on mainframes. These usually
older companies have complex systems built on the old code that simply can't be
replaced. T-Rex is expected to go on sale in June.

T-Rex is a great name, given the fact that it will be the biggest baddest mofo on the
block. It's especially provocative since both the concept and the term "mainframe" are
seen as dinosaurs. T-Rex would be an enormously bold, confident and effective stand
to take.

So, what'll it be? T-Rex or eServer zSeries 990? History offers no comfort here. AMD's
chip, code named "Sledgehammer," became "Opteron," while Intel's "McKinley" chip
became the "Itanium 2."

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F. Pepperidge Farm – One Smart Cookie

"Get Milk" and lift it high for Pepperidge Farm in honor of their branding smarts. Here is
a look into how and why their cookie naming architecture works.

Below on the left are the names of their chocolate chunk varietals. In the right hand
column, in mixed up order, are the distinguishing ingredients. See if you can match the
names with the cookie variety:

Name Variety
Sausalito Oatmeal Raisin
Santa Cruz Milk Chocolate w/ Walnuts
Tahoe Dark Chocolate w/ Toffee and Pecans
Chesapeake Dark Chocolate w/Pecans
Nantucket Milk Chocolate w/ Macadamias
Sedona Dark Chocolate
Montauk White Chocolate/ Macadamias

The reason you can't guess the correct matchups is at the heart of why the names work
so well. A less savvy marketing department would have pushed for a direct correlation
between geography and ingredients. That would have resulted in the name "Kona" for a
cookie with macadamias and milk chocolate, because that is where the exotic nut is
grown.

Well, the milk chocolate with macadamia nut version is called "Sausalito," a foggy little
peninsula that could never support the growth of macadamia trees. The same goes for
the nippy mountain lake of "Tahoe," the name of the white chocolate and macadamia
cookie.

So what is going on here?

Had Pepperidge Farm gone down the literal road, they would have named the cookies
after towns and regions that best represent oatmeal, toffee, pecans, raisins, chocolate,
and so on.

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Instead, they chose the names for the positive images, evocations, and aspirations that
they conjure from our collective consciousness.

That makes it "bigger" than the ingredients and "bigger" than cookies, much like Nike's
"just do it" and Apple's "think different" elevate them beyond sneakers and computers.
When a brand can rise above the goods and services they offer and create a loftier
connection with their audience, they indeed have found a recipe for success.

Ok, here are the real matchups:

Name Variety
Sausalito Milk Chocolate w/ Macadamias
Santa Cruz Oatmeal Raisin
Tahoe White Chocolate/ Macadamias
Chesapeake Dark Chocolate w/Pecans
Nantucket Dark Chocolate
Sedona Dark Chocolate w/ Toffee and Pecans
Montauk Milk Chocolate w/ Walnuts

Next time, the naked truth behind "Oreo."

G. Naming Consumer Products: Silk, A Category Killer

Soy Joy: When naming consumer products, few companies get it just right. Silk, a
product brand name for soy milk from the folks at White Wave, is a category killer,
meaning that competitors will never be able to find a name that is more effective. Silk is
a contraction of Soy + Milk and plays into the positive characteristics of high quality,
smooth, pleasurable, and sensual. They've taken an existing word and all of its inherent
cultural and experiential qualities and transposed it to an entirely new context.

While names typically fall into one of the four categories described above, Silk manages
to straddle three of them: Descriptive, Experiential and Evocative.

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Cheerios is one of the best cereal product naming results of all time and follows the
same strategy. The name is descriptive, yet has the secondary meaning of a happy
greeting. Both names work on multiple levels in the consumer's mind, and are therefore
very engaging and tough to beat.

V. Studies in Branding
A. Juice Branding – Simply Orange, Tropicana and POM Wonderful
B. Verizon's Tagline – a positive negative
C. Yahoo! Personals: Believe – a tagline creates brand engagement
D. Yellow Freight – the friction between a color and a name creates engagement

A. Juice Branding

Since Coke owns MinuteMaid and Pepsi owns Tropicana, it's not surprising that the
orange juice battle between them is being fought in the same way as their long-standing
cola war, which is further identical to the marketing skirmish between Dasani (Coke)
and Aquafina (Pepsi) bottled water. Both companies are committed to shadowing each
other's moves, resulting in products and brands that are virtually indistinguishable. The
dueling carafes below were predictable:

Simply Orange, by MinuteMaid, has a cleaner, more effective label. The messaging on
the Tropicana carafe is too busy; watch for it to get cleaned-up and for the illustration of
the orange on the label to increase in size. Since MinuteMaid has perhaps half the
market share of Tropicana in the non-frozen category, they will be "taking chances" and
Tropicana will be reacting.

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POM Wonderful

An interesting new player in the juice business is POM. The pomegranate juice is called
POM Wonderful after a variety of pomegranates. Other blended varieties are just called
POM, but "Wonderful" is carried over throughout the messaging. The packaging is
unique, and the sales pitch is anchored in the health benefits of antioxidants. At 26
cents per fluid ounce, POM is 3 to 4 times more expensive than national orange juice
brands.

POM is leveraging several points of contact in differentiating its brand. The name "Pom"
gives consumers a short and sweet way to get a handle on the rather awkward
mouthful, "pomegranate juice." It also helps make the idea of trying it less scary. Don't
be surprised if "pom juice" is adopted by the public as shorthand for all pomegranate
juice, giving POM a big advantage over their inevitable competitors. POM's tagline,
DRINK TO YOUR HEART'S CONTENT™, works on two levels: It reinforces the health
benefits of the juice and plays off of an emotional idiom.

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B. Verizon's Tagline: A Positive Negative

Loud and Clear: Full points to Verizon for redefining and taking ownership of the
phrase "Can you hear me now?" Most corporations would have missed this opportunity,
arguing that "Can you hear me now" is the question most often muttered in frustration
during cell phone calls gone bad. Why run television ads in which a Verizon user asks
this highly negative question over and over? Doesn't this portray the Verizon experience
in a bad light?

Au contraire, mon ami. The tagline "Can you hear me now?" works for many reasons:

• it's the last thing a consumer expects, so it gets their attention;

• it speaks to the user's experience;
• it's funny, warm and engaging;
• it's been successfully redefined to mean "Hear what we're saying? Another
breakthrough from Verizon."

Extra points to Verizon for understanding that a negative can be more positive than a
positive (i.e. "The clear alternative to Cellular") when it comes to branding.

C. Tagline: The Dating Game

The Yahoo! Personals new tagline, "Believe," is a masterful example of how to achieve
the brass ring of branding: Engagement. A less savvy tagline might have been "Find
that special someone you have always dreamed about," but that approach would be far
less effective because it:

• is exactly what people would expect to hear and would pass through them like
white noise.
• narrowly defines the Yahoo! Personals as merely a service offering.
• tells the audience how to think about it, with no room left for mystery.

"Believe" is a home run for their tagline because it:

• causes people to pause and ask themselves "Believe in what?" and to actively fill
in the blanks and personalize the connection, which is the most effective form of
engagement.
• elevates the Yahoo! Personals above the goods and services they offer and taps
into a positive aspirational philosophy.

This same strategy is demonstrated by these taglines: Nike's "Just Do It," Apple's "Think
Different," Fannie Mae's "We're in the American Dream Business," or Guidant's "It's a
Great Time to Be Alive."

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D. Yellow On A Roll

For more than seventy-five years, Yellow Freight Lines has stuck with one of the
simplest and most engaging color schemes ever devised. Their trucks and logo are
orange, and their logo consists only of the word "Yellow," with no additional information.
When you stop and think about it (we all have), that's engagement.

Another shipping company, UPS, is currently promoting its corporate color, brown, as its
new nickname: Brown. They are attempting to make a virtue out of a color that doesn't
usually generate much enthusiasm by turning it into a virtuous character.

Whether UPS' very tricky strategy will work remains to be seen, but Yellow has
demonstrated a startlingly simple and effective way to create a little friction with their
name, and from that a whole lot of brand engagement.

VI. Case Studies of Igor Naming/Branding Projects

A. Wynn Las Vegas
B. Tickle
C. Seven
D. Vanilla
E. Guidant Heartstring
F. BBC's The Office
G. Cisco Systems – Fast Track

Case studies below:

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A. Wynn Las Vegas

Our most interesting luxury brand naming job began on a Sunday when we retrieved a
voice mail from Steve Wynn, who left two cell phone numbers, a work number and his
home phone. Two days later we spent ten hours locked (literally) in the penthouse of
the Desert Inn with him – our longest kickoff meeting to date. He was seeking a name
for his newest hotel resort casino.

Mr. Wynn was open to using his last name for what would be his finest work, but had
several reservations about that strategy. A leading concern was that Donald Trump had
done this when naming his casino in Atlantic City. From a branding perspective, it
needed to be clear that Mr. Wynn's hotel was in fact a much higher-level experience
than Mr. Trump's. At issue was whether the same naming strategy would subliminally
convey that the two experiences were in any way similar.

We were convinced that Mr. Wynn should use his last name for the name of the hotel. It
became clear that within the resort casino sector, the two last names conjured very
different qualities in the hearts and minds of their audiences.

True to his famous reputation for attention to detail, Steve Wynn had called us in two
years in advance of the resort's opening, so there was ample time to work through all of
the possibilities and get it right.

During the initial meeting, an agent of Sotheby's had arrived with a multitude of iconic
paintings in tow, prompting talk of naming a hotel that was to be a timeless
work of art after an existing timeless work of art.

The new name was announced to the press as "Le Reve" ("The Dream"), after a
Picasso painting. As the opening of the hotel drew near, the actual name, Wynn Las
Vegas, was announced. Which is as it should be: a great work of art, signed by the
artist.

http://www.wynnlasvegas.com

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B. Tickle

Real friends Tickle: Emode, the premier web destination for personality tests and
matchmaking, hired us to name their new social network product. The fast emerging
and highly competitive social network sector is populated with mostly descriptive
names, such as Friendster, Friendspot, people2people, Six Degrees, Zero Degrees,
Everyone's Connected, ITSNOTWHATYOUKNOW and Visible Path. Other names
include Rhyze and Huminity, which defy rhyme, reason and classification.

As always, we were looking for the one name that worked on as many levels as
possible. Further, if the name we produced was well-loved, the plan was to migrate it
from a product name to the name for the entire company. So the name had to be able to
tie together all aspects of Emode's business, including the seemingly disparate activities
of IQ tests and romantic matchmaking. We had to develop a brand name that made
sense for intellectual pursuits, dating and social networking. Tickle works for all three:
Tickle you Brain, Tickle your Mate, Real Friends Tickle.

Beyond the practical considerations, the new name had to be:

• short, evocative, and loaded with meaning (the usual requirements)

• fun, human, memorable, distinctive
• relevant yet non-descriptive
• usable as a verb
• able to capture the attention of the world
• supportive of the company's positioning
• a deep well of marketing/advertising imagery and language going forward
• able to tap into the hearts and minds of their audience in a unique way
• a strong competitive advantage
• a compelling advertisement in and of itself

And of course, on top of all that the name had to be available from both a trademark
and a domain name perspective. After carefully considering every possibility in every
known language, it became clear that Tickle was the perfect name.

http://www.tickle.com

NEWS – May 23, 2004: According to the Center For Media Research, Tickle
Matchmaking has become the top online personals destination.

To see the full spectrum of names in this sector, check out the Social Network Names Taxonomy chart,
above, which we created as part of the competitive analysis phase of this project.

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C. Seven

SEVEN's patent-pending software, System SEVEN™, allows mobile data and

telecommunications operators worldwide the ability to offer subscribers secure, real-
time access to email and corporate applications via any mobile device.

It was clear early in the process that a descriptive name ("...Wireless") or a dot-com-ish
invention would not work to position this company above and beyond the pack in the
crowded telecommunications sector; indeed, only a clear, bold, evocative name,
instantly recognizable and loaded with layers of meaning, would suffice. SEVEN
emerged as the perfect name.

We worked directly with SEVEN's founder and CEO, Bill Nguyen, who explained the
appeal of the name we created in The New York Times Sunday Magazine:

Seven's abstract, slightly mystical quality, Nguyen reasoned, was the essence of its
appeal. "It has so many different connotations," he says. "Seven Wonders of the World,
seven days of the week, on the seventh day God rested. It's the number of perfection,
the good-luck number. There's also a data language in the telecom industry called SS7,
which the companies we deal with will appreciate."

System SEVEN is available today from the following mobile operators worldwide:

• Cingular Xpress Mail Network Edition

• Globe Telecom MobileMail
• KDDI Keitai Office
• NTT DoCoMo BINWAN
• O2 xmail
• Optus MobileMail
• Orange Office Freedom
• Sprint PCS Business Connection
Personal Edition & Enterprise Edition
• SingTel MobilMail

Seven: http://www.seven.com

News: SEVEN Wins Network Magazine's 2003 Product of the Year Award

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D. Vanilla

Just Plain Better. When we were hired to create a name for a new accounting firm, we
were fortunate to have a client with a unique story to tell. A recent Rockefeller
Corporation study which asked, "Why do customers leave their accountants?," revealed
great dissatisfaction with this industry among consumers:

68% - The customer believes you don’t care about them.

14% - The customer is dissatisfied with the service.
9% - The customer is lost to a competitor.
5% - The customer has a friend who provides the service.
3% - The customer moves away.
1% - The customer dies.

Notice that “price” and “quality” are absent from the results; customers made decisions
on what accounting firm to hire based predominately on how they were treated (i.e.
service). This new company wanted to change all that, to create a new kind of
accounting experience for small to medium-sized companies that threw out the old
rules, such as the dreaded "billable hour," and focused on customer service and
satisfaction. Their plan to do this included having fixed monthly prices for varying levels
of service, so their customers would never be surprised by their bill; unlimited support,
so customers could contact them any time by phone, email or in person to discuss their
account without ever paying a penny extra for it; and finally offering a superior online
accounting experience that gives customers and their accountants 24/7 access to the
customer's account, so businesses would be better able to make intelligent financial
decisions because they would always have the latest financial numbers at their
fingertips.

The challenge for Igor was to create a name for a brand new kind of accounting
experience, a name that's as distinctive within the accounting and business service
industries as the company's business model is. As the brand positioning developed, we
realized that the company needed a great name that not only worked on many levels,
but also one that was warm, human, sensual and evocative, all the better to counter the
prevailing names in the accounting industry. The bulk of names in the industry are cold,
calculating, inhuman, remote, mechanical, stodgy, soulless and devoid of charm.

Our client also wanted a confrontationally quiet name, a name that was a self-effacing
statement about the personality of accountants, yet elegant and dignified at the same
time. We found the perfect name in Vanilla, which demonstrates the above brand
attributes so that the company never has to explain them.

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For the Vanilla project, we also developed the company's website, adopting the clean,
spare design of our own site to reinforce the elegant simplicity of the Vanilla accounting
model. This phase of the project included implementing the sophisticated Movable Type
blogging software, allowing the company to post topical accounting news and insights in
a variety of categories, positioning the firm to become synonymous with "The
Accounting Blog" and own the conversation within the accounting industry.

Keep your eye on Vanilla -- this is a company with a great story to tell, and soon the
accounting industry will be playing catch-up, scrambling to deal with a unique new
name, brand proposition, and business model that in May 2004 infiltrated an industry
that has been fiercely resistant to change, for the benefit of customers who have had to
put up with tired old business practices for far too long simply because "that's the way
it's always been done." Well, no longer. Vanilla - just plain better.

http://www.vanilla-accounting.com

To see the full spectrum of names in this sector, check out the Accounting and Business Services name
taxonomy chart, above, which we created as part of the competitive analysis phase of this project.

E. Guidant – Heartstring

A couple of years ago the medical device manufacturer Medtronic introduced a vacuum
cardiac stabilizer called "Octopus," an evocative, intuitive name that referenced the
arms and suction elements of the device. The announcement of the name brought
laughter and derisive comments from competitors in the industry. At the time, Guidant's
competitive product was called "Axius," a typical Greek/Latinate morphemic-constructed
type of name common to surgical equipment.

The Octopus name began showing up in lectures and in quotes from surgeons in
articles, even when the Guidant Axius was the product being referenced. In just a few
short years, Octopus has become the default name for all similar cardiac stabilizers,
much like FedEx, Kleenex, Xerox, etc. became synonymous with their products. Without
employing a huge marketing budget, Medtronic captured the hearts and minds of their
target audience and made it impossible for anyone to steal them back, no matter how
many advertising dollars were thrown at the problem. The long-standing wisdom (fear)
that a surgical device needed a "serious sounding" name to appeal to surgeons had
been laid to waste. Medtronic has proven that, contrary to popular belief, surgeons are
human. Shocking.

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Guidant was not only determined not to let this happen again, they wanted a name that
would be a category-killer for the new product they were soon to release. Our
assignment was to come up with a name that would achieve common, default usage. A
name that would, pardon the pun, spread virally. And thus "Heartstring" was born, and
did just that.

The Heartstring is a coiled string that is used in place of a clamp when making a graft to
the aorta during heart surgery. Besides being descriptive, we chose Heartstring
because it has a secondary emotional context, and because when the procedure is
complete the surgeon simply "tugs on the Heartstring" to uncoil and remove it from the
aorta. Since the name had three points of connectivity with the audience, we knew the
chances were great of it attaining the Holy Grail of default usage. And indeed it has.

http://www.guidant.com/products/ProductTemplates/CS/heartstring.shtml

F. BBC's The Office

One of the funniest shows on televison is The Office. It originated on the BBC in
England, but is now available in the states on BBC America. This is not the watered-
down, focus-grouped dry heave that you've come to expect out of Burbank. The Office
is a faux documentary depicting life in the office of Wernham Hogg paper supply
merchants, situated in the small town of Slough near London.

We created a viral marketing campaign to increase the brand awareness of this Golden
Globe nominated TV show around the world. Using a combination of search engine
positioning and getting influential bloggers to write about the show and link to it, we
helped put The Office on the map in the United States in advance of the 2004 Golden
Globe Awards.

The show went on to win both of the Golden Globes it was nominated for.

http://www.bbcamerica.com/genre/comedy_games/the_office/the_office.jsp

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G. Cisco Systems – Fast Track

Cisco Systems needed a name for a product they describe as "Your shortcut through
the IP Communications decision-making process."

This web-based product takes prospective clients through a streamlined decision

making process that helps them assess their business and technical needs, chose a
solution provider, and build a case to sell the plan to corporate decision-makers.

The name to needed convey ease of use and infer the success of the user. The Igor-
supplied product name, "Fast Track" elegantly accomplished both objectives.

You can take the Fast Track ride here:

http://www.cisco.com/offer/powernow/ca/fasttrack/ipcomm/

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