Introducing the new Samsung Epix smart phone with a whopping…….wait for it……..2-megapixel camera!!! Guys, if you’re gonna include the term “pix” in your phone name it’s gotta have more-than-ordinary picture capabilities. My Blackberry Curve, hardly a substitute for a point and shoot, has 2-megapixels. And, while I’ve only read a few reviews of the phone (generally good, but still mixed), Epix is a really hard name to live up to. At least for now I’ll trust that the phone is as grand as its name implies. Overpromising: one of the biggest naming and branding mistakes.
Posts Tagged ‘technology naming’
I beg to differ with my esteemed colleague’s blog post about the naming of Windows 7. In it, Burt said “if Landor can get paid to come up with “FedEx” out of Federal Express, someone certainly can get paid for “7″ as a brand for the 7th version. Funny, Catchword never seems to get tapped for those easy jobs.” Well, maybe we didn’t create with the number “2″, but we were certainly asked to provide guidance to LeapFrog on what to name the second generation of Leapster. We went through a whole series of alternative modifiers - including candidates like Live, Go, and Connected - before we all agreed that the best choice was to go with the simple number “2″. This indicated that the new version was significantly different from the original Leapster, while maintaining the brand equity in the name (and not distracting from it with a word that might become a sub-brand, in the way that “Nano” and “Shuffle” are for the Apple iPod).
Look for more Catchword-named products from LeapFrog, coming to a store near you in 2009…
I read in today’s paper about the public launch of Tokoni, a one-stop destination for storytelling - on all kinds of topics, in all kinds of styles. I’ve been thinking a lot about Web 2.0-style company names, of which this is obviously one; it’s non-English, short, easy to spell and pronounce, and has a backstory that makes sense. Kind of like a new name we once created for eBay - Kijiji, the name for their global version of Craigslist. It was a great project - we got to work with Meg Whitman and Alex Kazim…who turns out to be one of the founders of Tokoni! Maybe I’m reading into it too much, but I’d like to think that he learned a little about company naming from us. Tokoni looks very interesting, and we wish him the best in this new venture.
And gives it a good review, too. Did I mention we named Didj? It was one of the most fun projects we’ve done for LeapFrog!
So putting aside the atrociousness of the name (seriously, this could be the worst company name ever launched), this new “Google-Killer” is not ready for prime time. I had to check it out, what with all the publicity it has received. Alas, the folks at Google can still rest easy. The folks at Cuil aren’t going to threaten their dominance any time soon.
Best part for me: the search for “naming” revealed two hilarious search results –
1) An old press release about Catchword hiring Mark Skoultchi in New York. The result itself was not so funny (if a bit out of date — Mark has been a partner in the firm now for several years). But the photo that they paired with it … priceless. IT’S NOT MARK. In fact, it kind of looks like George Stephanapolous. Random.
2) A reference to my old company, Master-McNeil (who wisely reserved “naming.com” an eternity ago). Again, the reference was not so funny, but the photo that went with it was a screen shot of SnarkHunting (another naming company’s blog site). Whoops. How does that happen? 
A few friendly words of advice from your neighborhood naming consultant: Change the name, then change the algorithm and start all over again. Can’t do any worse than the first time around, on either count.
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!
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!
We had a lot of fun developing this new technology name. The client was great to work with and the technology is going to shake things up when it hits the market. We’d love to say more, but Ozmo Devices still hasn’t launched publicly. For now, we’re excited that their new name and the fantastic graphic identity will be helping Ozmo get some well-deserved attention.
We really enjoyed naming Vivaty, the newest 3D virtual world experience that launched today. The product is truly amazing, and we had a lot of fun exploring the creative naming directions inherent in such a rich technology.
Vivaty is like Second Life, but better, much much better! It doesn’t require downloading clunky software onto your computer and therefore it isn’t as slow as molasses (ahem, Second Life). Instead, Vivaty is a lightweight application that can be seamlessly embedded in various web and social-networking sites like Facebook and Yahoo.
We got to see and play with a demo of the product while we were working on the naming project. And rest assured that I, Catchword’s resident social networking fiend, will be signing up for my beta Vivaty account ASAP!
Read the great NY Times article here, or read the PDF here.
Have you ever seen a brand name and wondered, “What the heck is that supposed to mean?” Even a naming specialist like me has this kind of “WTF experience” once in a while. My most recent head-scratching name conundrum involved the brand name Regza. Banners and posters were plastered all over CES in Las Vegas this year, advertising Regza, Toshiba’s brand of LCD TVs. As my brain was bombarded with the word, I kept wondering, “What does Regaza mean, and how is it appropriate for a flat panel TV brand?” I think I may have discovered Toshiba’s naming rationale, and you’ll be surprised at the answer.
A quick preface on TV names. Certainly there are good reasons to avoid overused word parts for television and video brands. The most trite include: Lum (Latin: light), and Vi- (suggests vision, life, and path). To stand out in a crowded and somewhat boring landscape of lum and vid/viv/veo names, I wholeheartedly endorse the use of more evocative or fanciful names. Some flat panel TV companies have created strong product names, while others have only succeeded in creating clunky, confusing names.
Here are five flat panel TV brands that I have investigated, evaluated, and ranked in order from worst to best.
(more…)
