Agenda Inc.’s Live Feed has a story about a woman who’s changing her name to goldenpalace.com, after auctioning off the rights to her name on eBay. Now, before you go thinking that’s gotta be the worst name ever, take a look at Snark Hunting this morning, where there’s a note about the “Worst baby name ever.” Poor kid.
OK people, when naming a baby, if you have a surname that’s also a word in the dictionary of your native tongue, please don’t let something like this happen.
The Inn Above Tide, a swanky Sausalito, California hotel, boasts this quote on its website:
“This inn probably has the most amazing views of the Pacific Ocean of any hotel in Northern California.”
–GoNOMAD, San Francisco guide
And indeed the website photos demonstrate a remarkable view. Problem is, Sausalito is on San Francisco and Richardson’s Bay, well inside the Golden Gate. The Pacific Ocean is several miles away, on the other side of a big hill, in the opposite direction. There is no view of the Pacific Ocean from this or any other Sausalito Hotel; it’s a physical impossibility. But then the owners of the hotel know that.
This is a beautiful hotel, where the waves actually pass beneath your balcony. Why would they put their luxury brand at risk with such a crazy statement? Some people are just slippery when wet.
UPDATE 5.23.05: The Inn has fixed the problem, and changed the language of the quote on their site to reflect reality. It now reads,
“This inn probably has the most amazing views of San Francisco Bay of any hotel in Northern California.”
–GoNOMAD, San Francisco guide
There is a theory in advertising that somehow sex and alcohol are a common real life combination. Virtually every American beer brand has sought to leverage this theoretical connection via television advertising, save one: Sam Adams, long known for eschewing this postulated tippling / titillating combo in favor of plowing the traditional, master brewer’s shtick.
And why not? It makes little sense to dive into the overcrowded orgy of slurping and grinding advertisements of their mass produced rivals. In order to compete with The Twins of family values-based Coors, they’d have to put up nothing less than Triplets mud wrestling post wet t-shirt contest. Now what kind of frat boy would that appeal to?
But that’s not to say that the Puritans at Sam Adams have never given in to temptation, and when they did they went all the way, unbottling years of pent-up frustration. Apparently their first time in the sack was enough to scare them straight. Check it out. [Via Commercial Closet.]
Herring Waffleman is one of the more original communications agencies in the business, but their helpful processes diagram seems to merely merge and simplify the processes put forth by Landor and Lexicon.
Channel 4 of London reports an interesting naming and brand positioning swerve by Subaru. But it’s not the brand positioning re-alignment the article might lead you to believe:
Latest news on the jointly-developed ‘Saabaru’ Subaru-Saab 4×4/station wagon crossover: the Subaru version is to be called Tribeca (an outlying borough of New York City). Subaru registered this name as a trademark earlier this year - along with the names Montauk (another NYC suburb, on Long Island), Continuum and Halifax for use on other upcoming models - and this name is likely to be used for the car in Europe as well as in the USA.
Lest you think Subaru’s brand image is going suburban, Tribeca is not, “an outlying borough of New York City”. Tribeca is a pricey neighborhood in downtown Manhattan. The five boroughs that make up NYC are Manhattan, Brooklyn, Staten Island, Queens and The Bronx. And of course, Montauk is not, as reported, a suburb of NYC. It is a seaside celebrity playground 120 miles away! (For you Brits, think “London to Nottingham.”) As to Halifax, it’s a city in Canada, so it’s nothing to get excited about.
While Halifax and Continuum are snoozers from a naming perspective, Tribeca and Montauk beg a second look. There are rumors out there that Tribeca is merely a code name, with “B9″ (yup, as in a tumor) to be the official name, but c’mon, let’s just stick with the error-riddled Channel 4 rumor for now. Will the name Montauk seem as cheesy as those earlier car naming attempts that placed an absurdly affluent name on an average auto (Fifth Avenue, Park Avenue)? Only by residents of Montauk, who wouldn’t be caught dead in one. Montauk comfortably continues the latest trend of “me too” outdoorsy upscale place names as names for SUV’s, joining Sonoma, Santa Fe, Sorento, and Tahoe (see Igor’s SUV Name Taxonomy for more).
Tribeca is the most interesting of the lot, and though it sticks within the upscale place name trend, it’s the first to step into urban territory. It’s also a beautiful — if not B9 — name that conjures a very specific attitude and style. Sure, it’s a seven passenger tank that has no business in NYC, but it’s a great name.
Update 3/29: Subaru’s own website just put these rumors to rest. They are going with tumor Tribeca, or in their parlance, “B9 Tribeca“. Why? Somebody probably thinks the implied “benign” helps soften the image of Subaru as they make their first move into the larger, less environmentally friendly segment of the SUV market. Nice try, but way too obvious and linear to be effective. And it just dilutes the perfect balance of masculine / feminine urban upscale sophistication and individuality implicit in Tribeca. They have taken a potentially great name and sillied it down. Boo.
*Full editorial bias disclosure: This blogger once shared a loft in Tribeca with gothic novelist Patrick McGrath, his personal grooming habits inspiring McGrath’s very short story, “The Manky Towel”.
Business Week reports that Microsoft, EU agree on new Windows name. The glorious new moniker?
Officials at the U.S. software giant said they had accepted the European Union’s offer to call the European version of Windows sold without Media Player “Windows XP Home Edition N” — with “N” standing for “not with media player.”
Microsoft officials are said to be unhappy with the name, but have agreed to follow European Union antitrust rulings to end their pain. This however sets a dangerous precedent, opening the door to other potential court-appointed truth-in-advertising names for the company’s flagship operating system, such as “Windows XP Home Edition DOA”, “Windows XP Professional Edition NFG”, “Explorer SOL” and “Longhorn MIA”.
C’mere me buxom beauty, and prepare to swab the poop deck ye filthy bilge rat! Korn star Jonathan Davis has been added to our list of celebrities who fancy ridiculous baby names. Davis and his wife, porn star Deven Davis, have named their son Pirate.
I’m a pirate! That I be!
I sail me ship upon the sea!
I stay up late - till half past three!
And that’s a peg below me knee!Yo Ho, my friends I have a tale
of treasure, plunder, sea and sail
my story’s bigger than a whale
it gets so deep, ye’ll have to bail.Chorus
I’m a pirate! That I be!
I sail me ship upon the sea!
I stay up late - till half past three!
And that’s a peg below me knee!I like to fish, I like to fight
I like to stay up half the night
When I say “starboard” ye go right!
Me ma, she says, “Ye look a fright!”Chorus
I’m a pirate! That I be!
I sail me ship upon the sea!
I stay up late - till half past three!
And that’s a peg below me knee!I’ve got no hand but that’s me hook!
I pillage stuff but I’m no crook.
Me booty’s in this chest I took.
They’ll write about me in a book!Chorus
I’m a pirate! That I be!
I sail me ship upon the sea!
I stay up late - till half past three!
And that’s a peg below me knee!And that’s all there is to this song.
I hope it hasn’t been too long.
A pirate’s life might just be wrong
So grow up nice and big and strong!
A Children’s Pirate Shanty, by Mark “Cap’n Slappy” Summers of Talk Like A Pirate Day.
The new baby pirate has a full name—Pirate Howsmon Davis. Sadly, the boy’s parents missed by a yardarm the opportunity to name him Pirate Howell Davis, so that, on the slim chance this kidd survives schoolyard mutinies and grows up not to be a mass murderer, a rock star, or a porn star, he might use the respectable moniker, P. Howell Davis, on his business cards and still have a good laugh and a grog with his mates.
There seems to be no end to this branding recipe we call “just add name and *ster.” Remember Napster, the music gangster? And Friendster? Now, there’s Queryster; just what we need, another search engine.
So, we asked the Queryster, “Are you a brandster?”
Frankly, we don’t care who you are. Your personality bores us, as does your pathetic attempts at conversation. Face it: it’s not who are you, it’s what you like. Call us materialistic (don’t worry, it won’t be the first time), but the label on your carefully distressed t-shirt matters. A lot. Hipsters aren’t hip solely because they have a working knowledge of existentialist philosophy. Ennui takes work, dedication and a careful selection of equally troubled brands.Face it, commercials are the new sitcoms, and billboards are the new newspapers. You cry during car commercials, and that Aflac duck makes you soil your Haines. For better or worse (we’ll lean towards the latter), you’re a brandster. Obsessed with iPods and Yurman, you’ve ditched your true self, opting instead for the best version Madison Avenue can create. Awesome.
Enquiring minds probably want to know what this *ster means, after all.
Star. Oldest form *2ster-. 1. Suffixed form *ster-s-. star, from Old English steorra, star, from Germanic *sterzn-. 2. Suffixed form *str-l-. stellar, stellate; constellation, from Latin stlla, star. 3. Basic form *ster-. aster, asteriated, asterisk, asterism, asteroid, astral, astro-; astraphobia, disaster, from Greek astr, star, with its derivative astron, star, and possible compound astrap, asterop, lightning, twinkling (< “looking like a star”; ps, op-, eye, appearance; see okw-).
Hipster tipster to Queryster: enoughster alreadyster of this brandster shit.
According to an article in The Wall Street Journal, mutual funds that underwent cosmetic name changes were rewarded with a huge ROI:
Funds that changed their names attracted 22 percent more new money than funds of similar size, investment style and other features that didn’t undergo a name makeover, the research shows. And that is true even if the name changes are purely cosmetic. …
Funds amending their names reaped an average of $67 million more than similar funds over the course of the 12 months after the name change, with funds hewing to hot trends getting most of the gain, the study found. On average, the funds studied each had assets of $299 million, so the new money amounted to a significant increase. All told, during the seven years from 1994 through 2001, 296 funds raked in $19.9 billion in additional money that could be attributed to name changes.
The researchers found that it made little difference whether funds changed their investment strategies to match their name changes. What did matter was how much funds raised their so-called 12(b)1 fees, which are largely devoted to marketing spending, and how much they levy in one-time sales charges. The more these expenses rise, the more new money the funds making name changes were likely to attract.
Sometimes the name changes were as simple as adding words such as “large,” “growth” or “large growth” to the name.
