Blog Archives

ibotta – What an awful name for a shopping app

Every so often a name comes along that actually gets some publicity or has the money to promote itself on TV. I was horrified when I first saw this name on a TV commercial.  Wow. Launching a new consumer shopping

Posted in Branding, Consumer Goods, Domain Names, International Naming, Name Origins, Naming Education, Retail, Rotten Names, Strange Names

A Tribute to James Burke

Those of you old enough to have watched television in the 1980s may remember James Burke, host and driving force behind my all-time favorite science documentary series, Connections. In each episode, Burke would start with some scientific advancement, show how

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Posted in Branding, Consumer Goods, International Naming, Naming Education, Naming News, Strange Names, Technology Names, Trademarks, Transportation

How to Make Your Brand Image Consistent Across All Channels

In today’s world, competition for customers has become increasingly fierce throughout all industries.Branding is the key to differentiating your company from your competition. All good brands are built through the regular delivery of their brand promise. It is this consistency

Posted in Branding, Domain Names, International Naming, Naming Education, Sustainable Brand Names, Trademarks

It takes some spunk to name your company Splunk.

When I first heard the name Splunk® I thought how cool a name it was. Surely one of those new mobile apps for and by millennials. No, rather it is the name of a back end data server and privacy

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Posted in Branding, Domain Names, Name Origins, Naming Education, Naming News, Technology Names, Trademarks

When your brand logo has a nickname

A few blogs back we asked if you knew the nicknames for the McDonalds and Ford logos. Surely most of you knew the easy answer to the first part of this: The Golden Arches for McDonalds ubiquitos big M symbol.

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Posted in Branding, Consumer Goods, Naming Education, Naming News, Retail, Trademarks, Transportation

Brand quiz answers

(Disclaimer:  I did rely on search engines and Wikipedia for some of the amusing and interesting background info. As author of the quiz, I knew most of the answers to these questions when I posted them – except Question 1)

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Posted in Branding, Consumer Goods, Food Names, Name Origins, Naming Education, People Names, Trademarks, Transportation

When a V sounds like a W and a W sounds like V or Do as DU

This may cause both embarrassment and offense when words, names, actions and abbreviations can be misconstrued, through pronunciation and misinterpretation. And it all depends on your home language. I recently had a tutorial with an ESL Post-grad student.  He apologized

Posted in International Naming, Name Origins, Naming Education, Naming News

What’s in a classical musical name?

I do enjoy seeing articles about naming, as long as it is not YASOI  (Yet Another Set Of Initials). Today I had the pleasure of seeing such an article as I pulled up my favorite classical radio station KDFC on

Posted in Branding, Consumer Goods, Name Origins, Naming Education, Naming News, Trademarks

Lyrica is a very musical name

If you are someone like me in marketing who actually listens to the names mentioned in advertisements, then there comes a point when you wonder why so many pharma and health and beauty products have such strange names. Yes I

Posted in Branding, Consumer Goods, Naming Education, Trademarks

Loews vs Lowes vs Lows

The last time I was in the property fixup business, my favorite local store was Home Depot. My kids even christened it “Daddy’s Toy Store” because I was there almost every weekend loading up lumber and paint and whatever. At

Posted in Branding, Hospitality & Travel, Industrial Products Naming, Naming Education, Trademarks

Recent Naming Articles

Brand insider articles from an experienced marketing team.

Mar 2023: Pricing your naming project

Oct 2021: The devil is in the trademark details

Mar 2019:The Power and Value of a Trademark

Jan 2019:4 common branding mistakes

Oct 2018: You named it What?

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See his industry naming commentary (where he takes a critical look at names) via the blog on this site