As the universe would have it, my recent posting on name generation was followed by (via serendipity) me stumbling on this Wired News story by Lore Sjöberg. A humorous article worth reading if you’re in a name search mode.
Archive for November, 2006
Name Game Side Note
November 29th, 2006 by Chief Nut
A Whale Of A Name
November 29th, 2006 by Chief Nut
In our first installment of coming up with a new company name, I threw out what I thought was one of the more interesting aspects of name generation … using cliches to inspire your thinking.
This time, let’s go back to a more fundamental approach. Of course, it seems natural to go through a brainstorming session to come up with naming ideas. During this session(s), there are LOTS of ideas that can be used to re-direct and extend your thinking (fodder for future posts), but here’s one of my favorites:
Tip 2: Take a blank piece of paper and make three columns. In the left column list features and benefits of your products or services. After you’ve exhaustively done that, look at the list and write down related words in the second column. These are words or phrases not necessarily related to you, your company or your service, but words related to your features or benefits in the first colulmn. Now here’s where it gets really fun. Do this last step AGAIN. Write down words related to the related words … words in the third column are related to those in the second column
By looking at ideas, words and phrases that are abstract and only remotely related to your product or service, you really start to push the envelope of possibilities.
Here are some examples:
Product: Shoes
Feature: Made for athletes
Related idea: Victory
Idea related to the related idea: The Goddess Nike … Ohhhh, see how that happened?
Let’s make one up for a mock “Bait and Tackle” shop.
Product: Fishing Tackle
Feature: Success at fishing tournaments
Related idea: The one that got away
Idea related to the related idea: Jonah’s Whale
or
Product: Fishing Tackle
Feature: Hand made
Related idea: Home cooked
Idea related to the related idea: Grandma’s Fish Fry
Now I’m not going to go so far as to suggest what a company name might be that’s derived from “Jonah’s Whale” or “Grandma’s Fish Fry”, but I can assure you that the owner of the Bait and Tackle Shop who completes this exercise will come up with a WAY better name than “Bill’s Fishing Supplies”!
Book Branding
November 28th, 2006 by Chief NutOn vacation last week I found myself in a discount book store where all titles were 40%-60% off. My son asked me about a specific book he was looking for and I explained to him that this wasn’t a typical kind of book store that had “best sellers.” It was only then that it dawned on me that the entire store was, for the most part, filled with brand failures. The books were either utter failures OR they were over produced by a long shot and the excess inventory needed to be moved at a discounted price.
I tried a little experiment and scanned an aisle or two … looking for books that passed a couple of subjective litmus tests; Was the cover really interesting or did it just blend in with all the other books around it? Did it follow “expected” book branding convention (more on this in a bit)? Did the title and sub-title engage me emotionally or hook me in some way?
Of course there were exceptions, but the vast majority of answers were “no”, “no” and “no”. Hmmmm.
I got home and took a gander at the Amazon.com Best Seller List and found a couple of things;
- There’s a strong correlation with cover design and the type of book (let’s call it “book branding”). For exmple, scan the list and look for all of the fiction novels. They all have a fairly abstract full cover image. The title covers 2/3 of the cover and the author’s name covers the rest (or vice versa). There’s almost no other text. Then, scan the list and look for all of the “famous people talking about their center of influence” books. There’s a prominent picture of them smiling, the titles are smaller and the subtitles are significantly longer. This applies especially for recipe, gardening and home improvement books. Again, there are exceptions to this, but it appears to be an implied convention.
- The most important point is that the overall presentations are MUCH more engaging … even those without imagery.
Does this type of analysis apply to you and your products and services? Should you be going out of your way to fully understand your entire market and identify if there are implied conventions? If there are conventions, will bucking them help you or hurt you? Do you reaallly need to jump through all of these analytical hoops? As they used to say on Laugh In, “you bet your sweet bippie!” I know, I just dated myselft … but you get the point.
Dollars To Doughnuts Is Cliche
November 27th, 2006 by Chief Nut
It’s been seven days since my last post. Taking a Holiday break was intentionally meant to be a time for me to recharge the ol’ batteries. What I didn’t expect was how effective this simple act was in doing just that … and how much I really needed it. The point? Take multiple days off (not just weekends) for a mental break on a regular basis. Don’t wait until you need it.
Back to our regularly scheduled blogging!
The number of times I’ve been asked about “names” in the past two months surely must be a sign that people struggle with this fundamental task. Finding the right name that’s effective, descriptive, defendable, and powerful is truly a super-human feat. It’s one that takes time, patience and creativity. Oh, and it’s easily the most important decision a business owner can make in launching their new venture!
There are dozens and dozens of ideas on how to approach this task. I’ve decided that this topic not only needs to be it’s own category in my blog, it also needs to be turned into a learning product … one that teaches entrepreneurs how to come up with a name that will stand the test of time and will rocket their product or service to success.
Tip One: Although directly using a cliche should be avoided, it’s a good exercise to jot them down and seek them out simply for the exercise that doing so will jog your thinking and get you going in a new direction. When you’re listing cliches, take the time to list ones that are indirectly related to your product. For example, if you sell fishing tackle, you’d quickly come up with “a fish out of water” as one of a dozen cliche phrases. Don’t stop there. Start thinking laterally and you’d also come up with “don’t rock the boat” and “waiting with baited breath”. Here are some web sites that will help you find these phrases.
Finding Cliches
The Cliche Finder
Movie Cliches
Sports Cliches
Cliches in Politics
Indeed, the process of coming up with a new name (company, website, product, service, etc.) is complicated. Come back often to read more tips! Better yet, click on a “chicklet” in the right column to subscribe to our RSS feed.
Just Getting A Handle On Web 2.0
November 20th, 2006 by Chief NutIt seems like I’ve been posting a lot about the web lately. Considering some web dynamics in the past year or so, and how they impact business, it’s not too surprising. Here’s another wave … hang on kids, this one’ll be a doozy.
Mash together a discussion of Web 3.0
The AndroidTech.com blog describes it as “what the next phase of the Internet will be … it will bring together advanced technologies that include the semantic web, adaptive datamining, and shared microtasking where all of us will build the next layer of intelligence into the web.”
with the goings on at Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (still in beta)
The Mechanical Turk is a social networking site where members are asked to perform tasks that computers currently can’t. Members get paid to perform these tasks, called HITs (Human Intelligence Task).
So, the next wave is to refine the differences between computing skills and human skills … to keep technology moving in a direction where the gap continually gets smaller with the advancements of Artificial Intelligence. Let’s just not let Arnold Schwarzenegger get his hands on a time machine, eh?
Amazon — Not deserving a “Weeeeeeee”
November 19th, 2006 by Chief NutThe first day of Nintendo’s new Wii system (pronounced “we”) has officially attained “hub bub” status. Lots of sales, lots of standing in line (including my wife at 4:00 AM this morning only to find out at 7:00AM that she was number 21 for the 20 units in the store), and lots of hoopla.
Clearly there are some issues with the system …€” not too surprisingly for a v.1 device …€” but that’s expected. So, why am I posting about it on a business/branding blog? A quick search for the Nintendo product on Amazon shows the Wii system is “currently unavailable”. Early announcements stated the device would be available at midnight. After well over 500 irate customer comments, you would think that Amazon would step in with SOME kind of comment or explanation of what was promised. Not so.
Will you have hiccups in your product/service delivery some day? OF COURSE you will. Communicating professionally with your audience won’t make the problem go away but it will go a lonnnng way in controlling brand damage.
A Hot New Brand … Seeing Red
November 19th, 2006 by Chief NutBrand Nirvana is launching a fresh new idea and having the brand take hold from day one. Of course that would be a tough thing to do but there are some strategies. Let’s look at some ideas;
1) You could get a celebrity to give the new brand extra oomph. Someone like … let’s say … Bono, the lead singer with U2. Someone like that.
2) Get Major corporate backers to cobrand their products in the new brand line. The new brand would then ride on their existing momentum. Good partners would be companies like Motorola, American Express, Apple, Armani … you know, BIG names.
3) Another great idea (called causal marketing) would be to funnel proceeds of the new brand’s sales to a highly visual, charitable cause. We’d pick something like AIDs relief in Africa or tuberculosis or Malaria.
Let’s recap. To make a great new brand, all we need to do is get Bono to contact Motorola, American Express, Armani and Apple to get them to co-brand their products in an effort to help out with AIDs relief, tubuculosis and malaria. Easy peasy.
What’s that you say? Bono’s already doing that?!? Oh.
It’s This Or Chocolate
November 18th, 2006 by Chief NutIt’s 7:30PM on a Saturday and I’m “blogging for comfort”. Michigan (my alma mater) just lost to Ohio State in, from a third party perspective, what was a really fabulous game. But, we still lost … sigh.
I am cheered up, however, after finding a great tool that you can all use in evaluating in-bound links to your web site. Go to Yahoo’s Site Explorer (still in beta), type in your URL and then click on “Inlinks” at the top. Compared to Google, this gives an amazingly comprehensive listing of what must be every page on the internet that points to your site. Very cooool.
Enjoy! I’m going back to help my wife back up HER alma mater … Cal — playing USC. grrrah!
Got A Hole In Your Internet Marketing? …
November 18th, 2006 by Chief NutPlug It! Launched just a few weeks ago, a new social network site (very Digg like) called PlugIM is geared especially for internet marketers and advertisers. Quickly growing, it already has LOTS of great content to review. Unlike Digg, you don’t have to be a member to give a post a “plug”.
Does Walmart Matter?
November 17th, 2006 by Chief NutStart up a discussion of WalMart at the next mixer you attend and watch what happens. The discussion may go in any number of directions, but it will be lively. If you have a strong opinion about “the Walmart effect” (good or bad), you’ll want to read this article by Art Carden at the Ludwig von Mises Institute.
Feeeed Meee
