Ask Jeeves has changed its name to Ask.com, muddying the branding waters with About.com and Answers.com.
Of bigger concern is the track record of generic brands on the web, especially in this space. Remember FindWhat, LookSmart, InfoSeek, AllTheWeb, etc? How about Pets.com, Drugstore.com or Business.com? And there are no intellectual property laws stopping anyone from launching AskAbout.com, AboutAnswers.com or AskAboutAnswers.com.
Right now. Or at least begining at 12:10 pm pst today. If you are close to San Francisco, tune to 91.7 on the radio or listen online here. Igor’s Senior Brand Strategist Andy Valvur and our good friend Will Durst will be discusing what makes funny funny.
First place in this wild, weird, and wacky street names contest went to Psycho Path in Traverse City MI, followed by Divorce Ct., in Heather Highlands PA, and Farfrompoopen Rd., TN.
The top 10 steet names?
10. Tater Peeler Road in Lebanon, Texas
9. The intersection of Count and Basie in Richmond, Va.
8. Shades of Death Road in Warren County, N.J.
7. Unexpected Road in Buena, N.J.
6. Bucket of Blood Street in Holbrook, Ariz.
5. The intersection of Clinton and Fidelity in Houston
4. The intersection of Lonesome and Hardup in Albany, Ga.
3. Farfrompoopen Road in Tennessee (the only road up to Constipation Ridge)
2. Divorce Court in Heather Highlands, Pa.
1. Psycho Path in Traverse City, Mich.Stylistically, the quotes are mostly the literary equivalent of Bearista Bears: sentimental, squooshy, with no aphoristic bite. "What a privilege to be here on the planet to contribute your unique donation to humankind," muses singer Shelby Lynne. "Each face in the rainbow of colors that populate our world is precious and special," observes civil rights leader Morris Dees. OK, sorry, Bearista Bears -- even you could come up with pithier quotes than those.The article goes on to talk about how Starbucks plans to address these concerns by adding the inspiration of Rick Warren, author of The Purpose-Driven Life: "You were made by God and for God, and until you understand that, life will never make sense ..." But still, the boycotts continue. As of Tuesday, Starbucks will no longer be served at BJU.
Still, Starbucks' customers are actually reading the cups, and in the great coffeehouse tradition of conversation and debate, threatening boycotts. In August, a cup featuring novelist Armistead Maupin's reflection that "(his) only regret about being gay is that (he) repressed it for so long" drew the wrath of the Concerned Women for America. Because the cup was too nice to gay people, the group suggested, it was offensive to conservatives and people of faith. A few weeks later, employees at a campus Starbucks at Baylor University, a predominantly Baptist school, purged hundreds of the Maupin cups.
Because change happenz, the theme of Zurich's latest TV and print advertising campaign, centers on Zurich's ability to actively evaluate change. Now and in the future customers know they will get more innovative, relevant, contemporary and secure solutions.Check out their latest ad campaign. It's the shitz.
God's Coffee™ offers your congregation the opportunity to enjoy delicious, fresh roasted, gourmet coffee and support your church's worthy cause.Clever branding begat delicious naming:
Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., who noted that many properties in New Orleans still have no electricity and some businesses can't open their doors, added that FEMA is so ineffectual that perhaps Congress should consider rebuilding the agency altogether, and not just because of an insufficient response to this single incident.This soundbite, reported by the news media and echoed in the blogosphere, is perhaps the clearest indication that FEMA is an acronym that has outlived its usefulness.
"The problems in FEMA are so systemic and so ingrained, I frankly don't know — other than turning the responsibility over to the National Guard and making some chain of command temporarily responsible for emergencies until we can go back and start this agency all over again. It's so dysfunctional or non-functional, it's frightening," he said. "New Orleans is a macroexample, there are these smaller examples all over."
Added Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn.: "For many people, FEMA is a four-letter word, a negative four-letter word."
"Passivity did the most damage," concluded the 520-page report, titled "A Failure of Initiative." It says authorities failed to move even when they knew days in advance that the storm was reaching catastrophic strength.Amid all the recommendations of this bipartisan report, there's one governmental solution you can count on — a change of name for FEMA.
"The failure of initiative cost lives, prolonged suffering, and left all Americans justifiably concerned our government is no better prepared to protect its people than it was before 9/11, even if we are," reads the report.
On the Senate side, committee Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, said in opening remarks that "within the federal government, DHS — which houses FEMA — bears the ultimate responsibility for a quick and effective response to disaster" yet the response was "time and again, late, uncertain and ineffective" and was "plagued by indecision and delay."
"If our government failed so utterly in preparing for and responding to a disaster that was long predicted and imminent for days, we must wonder how much more profound the failure would be if a disaster were to take us completely by surprise, such as a terrorist attack," she added.
"The chasm Katrina exposed between DHS and FEMA, one of its most important components, clearly presented one of the most significant impediments to a coordinated, swift federal response. Concerns about this disconnect were expressed long before Katrina, and our investigation has revealed disturbing conflicts over resources, roles and responsibilities."
Updated two days ago, it’s our free guide to naming a company or product. Although a bit protracted at 86 pages, this PDF takes up a mere 1.1 mb of cargo space, allowing you to wear it undetected under the most form fitting of fashions–that’s right, it’s now super absorbent and discrete.
More blogs about igor naming.
…three months and a million dollars later he wakes up on a steamer bound for ports unknown, unable or unwilling to reconstruct the events that culminated in this new tattoo…
Former Enron Broadband CEO Ken Rice laid out the power of language in court this week, demonstrating the value inherent in what a business is called. From Fortune:
He later described a May 1999 meeting where Skilling advised Enron’s top executives that, to boost the company’s shares, they needed to help him dream up an alternative to describing Enron as a “trading company” — since Wall Street viewed trading companies as risky ventures, and refused to give them lofty multiples. Management soon embraced a new mantra: Enron was a “logistics” company, engaged in “intermediation.” Its multiple began to soar.
The rollout of the broadband business accelerated that process. When Enron announced broadband’s new status as one of the company’s “core” businesses at a January 2000 analysts’ meeting, Enron shares leapt 25 percent overnight. The problem? “The business had very few customers and almost no deal flow,” Rice testified. And, oh yes — costs of $100 million a quarter.
Alas, the power of language and the leverage it wreaks in framing perception is equally potent in the cloven grip of a centaur as it is in the hand of man.
Stay tuned — coming up next on ‘My Little Pony’, Honolu-Loo pony hedges against U.S. inflation by going long on Japanese equities and buying puts on the yen.
