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.

BEST

1. Ghost

Who would give a new product a name that reminds people of haunting, horror and death? Rolls-Royce bravely did when it introduced the 2009 Ghost. Though the name is likely a nod to the British automaker’s 1906 “Silver Ghost,” it still carries a host of negative connotations–as well as positive ones. And that’s what gives it such impact. This is a car for the unapologetically intimidating, with a ride that’s smooth as mist drifting over a moor. Rolls-Royce calls the Ghost a “powerful presence.” And from a branding perspective, we have to agree.

2. Droid

Verizon licensed this name from the “Star Wars” universe for the cellphone it hopes will lead a rebellion against the iPhone empire. This is the first phone running Android 2.0 (the latest version of Google’s operating system) and the similarity of the names is a mixed bag. On one hand, there’s a powerful link between hardware and software; on the other, it’s a bit redundant. Still, “Droid” was probably worth whatever Mr. Lucas charged. It communicates extremely advanced technology, yet it’s familiar and a little bit cute–it makes the phone seem like a pocket-sized C3PO or R2D2. How could gadget geeks resist?

3. Fling

At 85 calories per serving, Mars’ new candy bar aimed at women promises a brief, mostly harmless indulgence. Summed up by its fitting tagline, a Fling is “Naughty, but not that naughty.”

4. Hunch

This online decision-making tool learns about you through your answers to a series of preference questions. Then Hunch makes suggestions about what you might like–from movies to travel destinations to what you should eat for lunch. The name is apt, human and engaging, and it refreshingly under-promises the service’s accuracy.

5. Shard

Looking like a small, pointy chunk of metal, this new multifunction keychain tool from knife manufacturer Gerber is appropriately named the “Shard.” Though the Shard has no actual blade and is officially airline-safe, the danger implied in the name adds to its appeal and is likely a key factor in the flurry of online chatter from customers who can’t wait to get their hands on the soon-to-be released tool.

6. Envy

Only a laptop as slim, sleek, smart and sexy as this glossy-screened beauty from HP could pull off the name “Envy.” Even Apple may be turning a little green.

7. Fever

The first in a new category of drinks dubbed “stimulation beverages,” Fever claims to enhance feelings of euphoria and even stimulate the libido thanks to its mix of several herbal ingredients. The name communicates excitement and a physical effect on the body, without crossing into the risqué.

8. Thinair

Thinair is a wind turbine with just one blade. In severe weather, the Thinair turbine parks its blade horizontally, with the narrow edge to the wind to minimize damage. We like the slightly mysterious quality of the name and how it communicates the blade’s ability to effectively vanish from destructive winds.

9. Peek

The Peek is a pocket-sized device that sends and receives email and text messages. That’s it. No phone, no calendar, no music, no camera. A device with such limited capabilities needs a proportionately modest name. Suggesting a quick, casual look, “Peek” hits just the right note for customers who don’t want to fuss with complicated hardware.

10. SweetLeaf

Three stevia-based sweetener brands–Zevia, Truvia and PureVia–made our Top Ten Worst Brand Names of 2008 list because of the similarity of their unimaginative, contrived names. So it was nice to see SweetLeaf enter the market this year with a name that conveys “natural sweetener” using–duh!–natural words.

WORST

1. Bing

Is it a cherry? A Crosby? No, it’s Microsoft’s new search engine. Reportedly chosen because it was a one-syllable word that could be used as a verb–a very low bar for such an important brand–“Bing” is equally meaningless in every language. The problem with this type of wholly invented brand name (sometimes called an “empty vessel”) is that it costs a fortune to endow the name with its intended meaning. But if anyone can afford a meaningless brand name, it’s Microsoft. They spent an estimated $80–$100 million on advertising to teach people to “Bing and decide.” Maybe the slogan should have been “Ka-CHING and decide.”

2. iSnack 2.0

When Kraft Australia needed a name for its new cheese and Vegemite spread, they held a contest and received 48,000 suggestions. Their winning pick? “iSnack 2.0.” Never mind that their product is food, not technology, and there was never an “iSnack 1.0.” Apparently Kraft thought they could make their product trendy by referencing a naming convention that originated in the early 90s. After a thorough thrashing by bloggers worldwide who called the name an “epic vegefail,” the product was renamed “Vegemite Cheesybite.”

3. Syfy

In an attempt to secure a trademark and shed its geeky image, the Sci Fi Channel changed the spelling of its name to “Syfy.” Network management reportedly felt hip and cutting edge when a teenage focus group informed them that the invented spelling is “how you’d text it.” But does making a name textable impart coolness? Hardly. Syfy’s reductive and juvenile spelling dumbs it down, contradicting the intelligence of the channel’s core audience.

4. Pre

Palm debuted a highly-innovative smartphone this year and inexplicably named it a prefix: “Pre.” Pre… what, exactly? By itself, “Pre” floats aimlessly, desperate to show its relationship to a concept, any concept. As a brand name, it’s so open-ended, it’s essentially useless. It’s like naming a product, the “The.” On second thought, maybe we shouldn’t give them any ideas.

5. Adamo

A high-design sliver of a laptop, the ultra-thin Adamo was meant to be Dell’s answer to the MacBook Air. The name, however, fails to rise anywhere near the heights attained by Air (which took the #1 spot on our list of the Top Ten Best Brand Names of 2008). “Adamo” is Latin for “to fall in love with.” But to anyone who’s not a Latin scholar, the name looks like the name “Adam” with an “o” at the end–a strong, masculine sounding name that doesn’t fit at all with a laptop whose main features are light weight and a svelte profile. Sorry, Dell, this name is hard to love.

6. Vook

A vook is a new form of media that blends a book with video. Though it confusingly appears in all lower case throughout the product’s Web site, “vook” is the trademarked name for this type of technology. Unfortunately, “vook” lacks punch and makes little allusion to the entertaining, immersive experience we expect a vook really is.

7. Xe

Thanks to its oft-criticized behavior in Iraq, the security services firm Blackwater found their reputation so tarnished that they changed their name to “Xe.” We assume they were aiming for mystery, but like a Northwest Airlines pilot, they overshot by about 150 miles and landed at baffling. Meaningless, unpronounceable and just plain weird, this name may be the perfect cover for a company that wants to disappear.

8. Keas

Former Google executive Adam Bosworth started this online health information and education service, which some experts believe may be a blueprint for the future of healthcare. Which makes Mr. Bosworth’s name choice for the startup all the more lamentable. The name, pronounced “KEE-ahs,” was inspired by the Kea, a species of parrot that Bosworth spotted on a hike in New Zealand. The name is so obscure it’s effectively meaningless, unless you happen to be an ornithologist.

9. The Hut

OMG, what is happening to branding? Pizza Hut is another major player that has adulterated its brand name to make it more textable. Some of their Pizza Hut locations have been renamed “The Hut” as company management experiments with a marketing strategy to toady up to the mobile generation. But these kids grew up on “Star Wars.” Can anyone in this audience hear “The Hut” without thinking of obese, drooling, slug-like Jabba the Hutt? Yeah, that’s appetizing.

10. VIA

Starbucks had a great opportunity to create a fast, exciting name for their first instant coffee. Instead, they chose VIA. We’re not sure what the all-capitals presentation signifies (and based on what Starbucks has said about the name, neither are they), but to English speakers “via” means “by way of”–which is about the most pedestrian of ideas. Even for Italian speakers the name isn’t much better–“via” is Italian for “road.” Here’s hoping the coffee has a lot more flavor than its name.

©2009 Pollywog Inc. All rights reserved. To reprint or reuse this article, please contact us.

The branding world is abuzz today with reactions to AOL’s advanced look at a rebranding campaign, the cornerstone of which is a revamped logo.

AOL said in a press release:

AOL today previewed its new brand identity for its future as an independent company committed to creating the world’s most simple and stimulating content and online experiences.

The new AOL brand identity is a simple, confident logotype, revealed by ever-changing images. It’s one consistent logo with countless ways to reveal. The new brand identity will be fully unveiled on December 10, when AOL common stock begins trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

“Our new identity is uniquely dynamic. Our business is focused on creating world-class experiences for consumers and AOL is centered on creative and talented people – employees, partners, and advertisers. We have a clear strategy that we are passionate about and we plan on standing behind the AOL brand as we take the company into the next decade,” said Tim Armstrong, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of AOL.

So I gather the company’s positioning (repositioning?) is that it offers “the world’s most simple and stimulating content and online experiences.”

Herein lies AOL’s problem.  Its positioning is neither clear nor focused nor different from hundreds of other information/entertainment services on the Web.

AOL’s brand image is as indelible as any brand’s can be. It rose to prominence as “the Beginner’s Internet.” AOL was a safe and easy way for novices to get used to using the Web.

Those days are over. Like Polaroid, whose name now stands for an obsolete technology, the AOL brand stands for a need that people no longer feel.  Never mind the Time Warner merger debacle. AOL’s halcyon days were certain to come to an end as the universe of users became adept at roaming the Web without AOL’s training wheels.

It’s clear that AOL understands the power of their brand’s heritage, because they retained the idea of “simple” in their brand messaging. But now the company is clinging to the very brand attribute that’s dragging them down. “Simple” is now a best practice in Web IA and design, and most marquee information/entertainment sites are designed so even a novice user can find his way around.

Take a look at the AOL home page. Is it any simpler than, say, Entertainment Weekly, People, or USAToday? I don’t think so. It might even be more complicated than some. Is the content more “stimulating?” Not that I can tell.

If AOL wants to save its brand, it needs to burn its ships like Cortez on the shores of the New World, forget about making “simple” part of its brand positioning–that’s table stakes now–and focus on offering something really different and believable.

“The world’s most stimulating content and online experiences” is neither.

AOL’s biggest problem is that, like GM, the company is still huge, but it’s no longer in the market position to act like a category leader. They need to think like an entrepreneur, who looks for ways to carve out a unique niche or, better yet, create a new category. If they ever found that opportunity, they should dump the AOL name and its associated baggage–burn their ships–so they can launch unfettered and go about conquering this new territory.

But I suspect they will limp along, like Polaroid, continuing to offer a me-too product and being just profitable enough to keep the lights on.

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?

Dear General Motors:

I read in The Wall Street Journal that you want to attract a younger audience to your Buick brand. As an American taxpayer, I own 62% of your corporation, so it pains me to say that this strategy is doomed.

The Buick brand is imprinted as a car that belongs to an older generation. For young people today, it’s a punchline. Downsizing the LaCrosse isn’t going to make it a young person’s car, nor is tweeting about it.

This is, unfortunately, more of the same kind of flawed thinking that got you where you are today. You’re simply tweaking your products and expecting advertising to compensate for genuine innovation.

Even with Enclave crossover sales skewing to a younger buyer, the average age of a Buick owner is 70. Face it: Like its core customer, the Buick brand is in the sunset of its life. Instead of fighting the headwind of negative perceptions rooted in intractable generational experiences, you ought to replace the Buick brand with a fresh new one–with models that are unlike anything we’ve ever seen come out of Detroit. Properly done, this new brand would repel the typical Buick owner because it’s not for them.

Given the thumpin’ you have taken in the marketplace, you need to stop thinking like an invincible market leader and start thinking like a hungry entrepreneur. And by that I mean, stop imagining that you can compete by making me-too products and start looking for radical differentiation and innovative niches where a new brand has little to no competition.

Toyota did it with Scion. BMW did it with Mini. You can do it too.

Please, please try harder. My tax dollars are at stake.

GM has announced that it is selling its Saturn division to racing icon Roger Penske. The $1.3 billion Penske Automotive Group has a number of auto-related businesses, including exclusive distribution of the Smart Car in the U.S. and a collection of dealerships representing 40 different brands.

Introduced in 1988, Saturn was once Detroit’s wunderkind. Launched with an advertising campaign by the late, great Hal Riney, it was “A different kind of company. A different kind of car.” The positioning, a  common-sense car from with a no-hassle purchase process, resonated with American car buyers, and the Saturn brand took off like a comet.

But through the years GM eroded its brand by failing to innovate with new products–or, more precisely, innovating too little, too late–and muddling its brand messaging. As a result, the “common-sense car” became the “uninspired and dull” car.

Plus, Saturn’s original “no-hassle” message was easy to copy. And even if the experience at competing dealerships didn’t always live up to the promise, the commoditization of message was enough to whittle away at the distinctiveness of Saturn’s brand.

Eventually, Saturn’s brand image could be summed up by consumers as, “The same old GM company. The same old GM car.” Ouch.

This must have broken Hal Riney’s heart in his later years. As a brander, he did so many things right. But brand messaging can only take a brand so far.The product has to deliver on its brand promise.

So it will be interesting to see what product innovations Roger Penske pursues. Will he try to put Saturn back on its original track? Or will he make Saturn stand some for something else entirely?

Much depends on how tarnished the Saturn brand has become. Only market research can determine how much brand rehabilitation is possible. Will it be enough to untether the brand from GM, innovate with some provocative new models and return to its original positioning?

Or will the new Saturn need a total makeover, including a name change and completely new positioning?

I’ll be watching from the Pollywog observatory.

Looks like I was giving Microsoft too much credit when I wondered if “Bing” was a shortened form of “bada-bing” and might refer to the ease of finding what you want with its new search engine.

Cnet reports that in addition to branding the search engine, Microsoft is saddling several other products with the Bing brand name. Microsoft Farecast is now Bing Travel.  Virtual Earth is now Bing Maps for Enterprise.

So, no. It doesn’t have anything to do with “bada-bing”–except, according to BusinessWeek, for introducing the brand with a gag video featuring James Gandolfini —or search for that matter.  Microsoft’s criteria for choosing this brand name?

Microsoft chose Bing, Ballmer said, because it wanted a short one-syllable name that could “verb up”—in the way people say “Xeroxing” copies or “Googling” search results—and was inoffensive in several languages

In English, “bing” is tangentially related to concepts far afield from any brand promise associated with these Microsoft products. In other languages, it’s “inoffensive.”

But it’s short, and you can make a verb out of it.

Wow. That’s a very low bar. It’s a good thing Microsoft has boatloads of money to spend on building this brand, because the name isn’t pulling its own weight.

Illustration by Jake Turcotte, Christian Science Monitor

Rumor has it that Microsoft’s new search engine–previously known as Live Search, then temporarily renamed to Kumo–will now be launched as “Bing.”

Admittedly, we have been tough on Microsoft for its lackluster naming. But when a company has the budget of a Microsoft, shouldn’t it nail its branding every time?

According to this story in PC World, Bing’s value innovation lies in making searches more efficient by providing a list of related categories with your search results. So what does “Bing” refer to?

To me, it connotes cherries and Crosbies. But maybe Microsoft was going for the “bing” in “bada-bing.” As in, “Bada-BING! Here’s what you were looking for.”

If that’s the case, they should have used the whole word so that the idea hits the brain fully formed. Without the “bada,” the “bing” can mean too many things, leading the brain off on tangents.

On the other hand, maybe I’m giving Microsoft too much credit. Maybe they were just looking for a short, meaningless, onomatopoeic word that sorta sounds like that seminal moment when you find exactly what you’re looking for online. Maybe they wanted a short word that could be made into a verb.

I get that. But of all the criteria that a name should be evaluated against, brand promise is the most important, not length or sound.

“Bing” is not the worst brand name ever invented. But it could have been better.

Moral of the story: When you’re naming, don’t use just parts of words that can make too many irrelevant connections and diffuse the focus of your brand message. Use the right whole word–a word that people already know–and (bada-bing bada-boom!) you’ll connect to existing ideas that communicate how you want your brand to be perceived.