The Pollywog Blog

Much has been written about Apple’s clumsy introduction of the iPad.

But the hook to this story is not that a big company made a naming mistake. This happens, sometimes in large, visible cases.

Nor is the story about alleged sexism at Apple. While it may be true that Apple’s culture is dominated by males, I don’t for a minute believe that they were unaware of the sanitary napkin connotations.

The real story here is that they didn’t care.

I can imagine Steve Jobs and crew concluding, “So what? They’ll get over it once they experience how great this device is.”

And I admire any company so confident in their products that they’ll bat off criticism of their brand name. It reminds me of Nintendo’s belief in the Wii, and how they weathered all the potty jokes when the product was first introduced.

(In Nintendo’s case “Wii” was actually a great name that deserved to be defended. “iPad,” not so much.)

Apple will survive the onslaught of jokes and criticism, and the iPad will live or die based on the viability of the category it has created. Is there really a gap between the netbook and smartphone–room in the market for a touchscreen tablet computer–or is the iPad superflowous? (Sorry, couldn’t help myself.)

And even though the brand name will not make or break this product, I must still ask, Why, oh why? As a brand, Apple prides itself on innovative products with the most seamless, intuitive user experience. To reach the level of user insight necessary to create new paradigms in UX, Apple has proven itself capable of living in our skin, of understanding our needs before we do.

Apple should have anticipated the effect of a product name so ripe for ridicule that it jolts us out of the Apple ethos.

In the long run, the blowback from this branding error will likely be minor. But with a slightly more bulletproof brand name, Jobs and company could have avoided the customer’s natural conclusion that, this time, Apple didn’t think of everything.

Kraft’s most embarrassing and painful new product introduction is now complete. In what has been dubbed an epic Vegefail, its new Vegemite + cheese spread will henceforth be known as “Vegemite Cheesybite.”

More than 30,000 people voted for a winning name by way of online and telephone polling. “Vegemite Cheesybite” received 36% of the vote. In second place with 25% of the vote was “None of the Above”.

Interestingly, according to another online survey, most people think that this was all a PR stunt. Just look at the volumes of free media exposure, they argue. Kraft would have had to spend millions on traditional media to get this much awareness.

But that’s giving the brand managers at Kraft way too much credit. These folks are as risk-averse as they come. It’s inconceivable that they would purposefully unleash such an avalanche of negative attention. After all, they were so afraid of failure that they consigned the responsibility of naming their new product to the customer hivemind.

In my view, this situation is far more likely to be exactly what it looks like. Kraft’s managers were dim and naive, but not mean and conniving enough to have knowingly set poor Dean Robbins–the creator of “iSnack 2.0″– up for humiliation. He’s the one I really feel for.

Turns out the product will remain in Kraft’s Vegemite line, but will be renamed. That’s reasonable.

However, Kraft says that it has culled a short list from names submitted during the contest and will–wait for it–conduct a survey and choose whatever the public tells them to.

Again, instead of evaluating these name options on a set of relevant criteria that affects how well the brand name will perform in the marketplace, they’re just going to leave it to whatever the public likes.

“Rest assured, Kraft’s hands are off it,” spokesman Simon Talbot told the Brisbane Times. “The public can have their say and it won’t have anything to do with us.”

This reeks of “we just want this problem to go away,” but still I’m dumbfounded that a company the size of Kraft would so completely relinquish its opportunity to create this brand.

Although Kraft isn’t saying which names will be voted on, there’s a short list on its Web site with names some believe are front runners:

2ritemite
Golden Mite
Allroundamite
Newumite
Snackmite
Blonde
Ruddymite
Wow Chow
Moo in Mud
Vegemite blonde

If I were Kraft, I’d want this problem to go away, too. But now it appears the company is going to live with this branding mistake for the lifetime of the product.

Kraft announced today that it is discontinuing its new iSnack 2.0 product.

A line extension to Kraft’s venerable Vegemite spread–which has enjoyed decades-long popularity in Australia–iSnack 2.0 had a sad, short life characterized by a one-day fanfare followed by a three-day shower of rotten tomatoes.

Last week, Kraft Foods had proudly announced that its new product–a spread made of Vegemite and creamed cheese–had been named after a three-month, nationwide contest which provided more than 48,000 choices.

The winning name, iSnack 2.0, touched off an immediate worldwide reaction. Widely panned by industry experts and consumers alike, the iSnack 2.0 brand name is a textbook example of how not to do branding.

The problem wasn’t the contest, per se. Good brand names can come from anywhere–including contest entrants. But without a robust, valid means of evaluating name options, managers who are way too close to their brands can’t tell shit from Shinola. And as with any kind of naming contest, there’s a high risk that there may not be any Shinola coming in with the shit.

It astounds me that, in this age of dwindling trademark availability and a glutted brand landscape, some large companies are still having contests to find brand names for their products. Should “the single most important marketing decision you can make” really be left to chance like that? Do they use crowdsourcing to write their marketing and media plans, too?

Doctors bury their mistakes. Advertisers broadcast theirs. And then YouTube makes sure they go viral. How’d you like to be that product manager?