Clients often ask us, “Now that I have a new company name, what’s next?” There’s still much to do, from announcing your name internally and externally to handling legal and administrative details. Catchword has developed a document called “Launching Your New Company Name” to help guide you through key elements of the process.

Here are a few excerpts from the section on Technology. You can download the whole thing in PDF form here.

Once you’ve changed your company name, don’t forget to:

If you find you need professional help, give us a call. We have strong relationships with firms that specialize in highly effective name launches.

All previous posts in this series:

Legal and Administrative
Marketing and Identity
Internal Communications
External Communications

Tags: company name launch, Launching Your New Company Name, Name Launch, new company name
Posted in Catchword, Company Naming, Name Launch | 1 Comment

Clients often ask us, “Now that I have a new company name, what’s next?” There’s still much to do, from announcing your name internally and externally to handling legal and administrative details. Catchword has developed a document called “Launching Your New Company Name” to help guide you through key elements of the process.

Here are a few excerpts from the section on External Communications. You can download the whole thing in PDF form here.

Once you’ve changed your company name, don’t forget to:

If you find you need professional help, give us a call. We have strong relationships with firms that specialize in highly effective name launches.

Next Friday: Technology
Previous Post: Internal Communications

Tags: company name launch, Launching Your New Company Name, Name Launch, new company name
Posted in Catchword, Company Naming, Name Launch | No Comments

Clients often ask us, “Now that I have a new company name, what’s next?” There’s still much to do, from announcing your name internally and externally to handling legal and administrative details. Catchword has developed a document called “Launching Your New Company Name” to help guide you through key elements of the process.

Here are a few excerpts from the section on Internal Communications. You can download the whole thing in PDF form here.

Once you’ve changed your company name, don’t forget to:

If you find you need professional help, give us a call. We have strong relationships with firms that specialize in highly effective name launches.

Next Friday: External Communications
Previous Post: Marketing & Identity

Tags: company name launch, Launching Your New Company Name, Name Launch, new company name
Posted in Catchword, Company Naming, Name Launch | No Comments

Clients often ask us, “Now that I have a new company name, what’s next?” There’s still much to do, from announcing your name internally and externally to handling legal and administrative details. Catchword has developed a document called “Launching Your New Company Name” to help guide you through key elements of the process.

Here are a few excerpts from the section on Marketing and Identity. You can download the whole thing in PDF form here.

Once you’ve changed your company name, don’t forget to:

If you find you need professional help, give us a call. We have strong relationships with firms that specialize in highly effective name launches.

Next Friday: Internal Communications
Previous Post: Legal and Administrative

Tags: company name launch, Launching Your New Company Name, Name Launch, new company name
Posted in Catchword, Company Naming, Name Launch | 1 Comment

Clients often ask us, “Now that I have a new company name, what’s next?” There’s still much to do, from announcing your name internally and externally to handling legal and administrative details. Catchword has developed a document called “Launching Your New Company Name” to help guide you through key elements of the process.

Here are a few excerpts from the section on Legal and Administrative. You can download the whole thing in PDF form here.

Once you’ve changed your company name, don’t forget to:

If you find you need professional help, give us a call. We have strong relationships with firms that specialize in highly effective name launches.

Next Friday: Marketing and Identity

Tags: company name launch, Launching Your New Company Name, Name Launch, new company name
Posted in Catchword, Company Naming, Name Launch | 3 Comments

Clients often ask us, “Now that I have a new company name, what’s next?” There’s still much to do, from announcing your name internally and externally to handling legal and administrative details. We’ve put together a handy-dandy guide to help you launch your new company name.

We’ve divided your name launch into five categories: Legal and Administrative, Marketing and Identity, Internal Communications, External Communications, and Technology.

Check out our guide by clicking the image above, or by clicking here.

If you find you need professional help, give us a call. We have strong relationships with firms that specialize in highly effective name launches.

Tags: company name launch, Launching Your New Company Name, Name Launch, new company name
Posted in Company Naming, Name Launch | No Comments

I saw a recent ad in the New York Times announcing the name change of the management consulting group of Booz Allen Hamilton to just Booz & Company. At first I thought it was a joke – maybe something management consultants do to one another instead of putting cellophane on the toilet on April Fool’s Day. Upon closer inspection, I realized it was not a joke; just a poor decision.

I remember when Anderson split into two groups. The accountants kept Anderson (only to destroy that brand a few years later with front-page ties to Enron and other corrupt companies) while the consultants forged a brave new brand: Accenture. At the time, the new name was ridiculed by the media, the branding world, and by most employees. Sadly, most new names suffer this fate. However, as the brand took hold (and the old name suffered an even worse fate), much of the criticism faded. Today, Accenture is viewed as a strong brand name, and a great case study for how successful name changes can be.

Which brings us back to Booz. I’m sure I’m not the only one who chuckled at this truncation. Any of the other co-founders would have been better – Hamilton & Co. has a nice ring to it. Booz? Please. Do you really think clients want to trust their company’s future to a bunch of … Boozers? Boozos? Loozers? C’mon.

Why did they make this move? A cascade of tactical errors. First, I’m guessing they tried to come up with something new. Maybe the hired a big naming company to suggest a few ideas. When none of those “jumped off the page” (a phrase heard all too often by naming consultants like me), they gave up. Never mind that they probably passed on dozens of solid brand names that just needed a little support to get off the ground. Remember, these are the smartest guys in the room.

Second, they looked at their competition. Not a very strong group of brands, I’ll concede. PricewaterhouseCoopers – the name that’s so long they had to shrink it just to fit it on the letterhead. IBM GBS – because we thought more initials would add clarity. Bain – almost as bad as Booz. These names are the bane of my existence. Don’t even get me started on Monday – thank goodness that name was taken off the market. (As I have said many times before, please folks, let your trusted naming consultant help you! Naming is not best left to the bean counters and graphic designers.)

Finally, they considered their existing assets. I can hear the conversation now … the head of the branding committee says: “Everyone calls us Booz anyway. It’s shorthand for the company name. If we just use that, we can bridge our equity back to the old brand, but still separate from the Government Services Group. It’s perfect! (Heck, at least it’s better than Bain.)”

And there was one poor soul, in the back of the room, too afraid to speak up and say WHAT EVERYONE ELSE SHOULD HAVE BEEN THINKING: “Um, excuse me for being difficult, but … do we really want to brand ourselves after alcohol? Does that have the tone of serious business we are looking for? And, forgive my insolence, but hasn’t Mr. Booz been dead for like fifty years? Oh, and one more thing … instead of looking backward to our old glory years and dead founders, couldn’t we use this as an opportunity to move our brand forward, into new territory with new messaging and new strategic positioning to help us better compete with our better-branded competitors? Isn’t that what we would tell our clients to do? No? Oh, well forget I said anything. Go on.” A Dilbert moment if there ever was.

These guys are supposed to represent the smartest of the smart. I say they don’t know diddely squat about branding. Next time, call a naming professional. I’d be happy to help. “Consultants-R-Us”? “Consultopia”? “Strategery Consultified”? No? I’ve got more. Wait, come back…

Tags: Booz & Company, Booz Allen Hamilton, name change, naming faux pas
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We were thrilled to see one of our new names launch this week. Sezmi is, “the first complete TV 2.0 offering, that combines traditional TV content, movies and internet video in a single easy-to-use product.”

This was a fun project from the get-go. The product demo wowed us. Believe you me, Sezmi is amazing. It has the power to predict what you are likely to want to watch, and acts on that prediction. That way, when you’re ready to watch a new show, it’s already downloaded onto your 1TB Sezmi drive. No lengthy lag time waiting for the show to download.

Our client assigned us the exciting dual challenge of product naming and company naming, all-in-one. Relevant and unique domain names for companies aren’t so easy to come by these days, so we had our work cut out for us. But we used our special naming guru voodoo to come up with Sezmi. This name conveys the power that Sezmi affords the TV watcher. Sezmi’s tagline says it all: “TV that tunes into Mi!”

Sezmi afforded us another great opportunity to work with design agency Turner Duckworth. They created an amazing logo, and are also responsible for the industrial design application of “mi” on the remote. (You’ll see it when you buy your Sezmi.) Those Turner Duckworth folks are very clever.

For more coverage of Sezmi, click here and here. We’re looking forward to the day when there’s a Sezmi in every home. Tivo, your days are numbered!

Tags: Company Naming, Product Naming, Sezmi, technology naming, television naming
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ZS Associates approached Catchword to help create a new name for their suite of software products. We started by evaluating the various legacy product names and then began to explore what makes ZS’s software suite unique and valuable. The name Javelin conveys speed and accuracy — both desirable benefits for busy sales people.

It was great working with the folks at ZS. They managed to come together as a team and rally behind a powerful new brand name that will help them market and sell their software products more effectively.

(Maybe it’s because of the upcoming Olympic Games, or maybe because Javelin is a great, resonant name — Either way, I just can’t get the old Track & Field adage “Higher Faster Farther” out of my head!)

Tags: B2B naming, Javelin, software naming, ZS Associates
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On Monday Kickfire publicly launched, effectively lighting a fire under the feet of their MySQL query competitors. Kickfire’s product is a database appliance that revolutionizes the way queries are conducted. The small form-factor and industry-first SQL chip make Kickfire’s queries faster and simpler than current industry-standard systems. What’s more, the Kickfire database appliance is more economical than the competition, opening up the MySQL database market to small and medium businesses previously unable to afford expensive database systems.

We had a lot of fun exploring ways to communicate speed and ease-of-use for this high-tech brand. The interesting challenge in this case was to find a name that was appropriate as both a company name and a product name, while also having an available dot-com.

The Kickfire team did a great job taking the name we created and shaping it into a great brand. We think Arami Design created a cool company logo and implemented it quite beautifully throughout the Kickfire web site. Just check out the web site and flash demo, and you’ll see what I mean!

Tags: appliance naming, database naming, Kickfire, technology naming
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