Posts from: February 2007
GAP announced today that their latest bad idea, F.A.T., is fat no more. Here was our take on GAP’s “fourth brand” (get it?), when it was announced two years ago:
Forth & Towne is the name of Gap’s new store for women over 35. What aspiration is the name tapping into for women in this middle-age demographic? We don’t know. But it’s worth noting that they chose to present the name with an ampersand instead of spelling it out as pronounced, a la Forth And Towne. Why is anybody’s guess.
In the article, Gap President Paul Pressler weighed-in, calling F.A.T. a “sizable opportunity”.
Oy. We love the smell of hubris in the morning.
I spy with my little eye something that starts with i.
In an inexplicable settlement of one of the most publicized naming and branding disputes in recent years, Cisco and Apple have agreed that both companies will be free to use the trademarked name iPhone as the name of their telephony products, the Linksys iPhone and the Apple iPhone.
Marty Schwimmer at The Trademark Blog has the full text of the settlement statement.
In our continuing series of Obfuscating and Circuitous Process Diagrams, we give you the U.S Department of Defense’s own “Verification, Validation, and Authentication problem solving process”. If this doesn’t scare you, nothing will (click to enlarge):
Personality Hotels is expanding fast, adding two new properties to its stable of five hotels, Hotel Union Square, Hotel Diva, Kensington Park Hotel, Hotel Metropolis, and The Steinhart. The San Francisco boutique hotel company, whose properties are clustered around Union Square, has acquired both the York and Maxwell hotels, which are also near Union Square. The new owners are embarking on a series of renovations, according to a recent article in the San Francisco Business Times.
Company President Yvonne Lembi-Detert said Personality plans to relaunch the 96-room York as the Vertigo, a nod to the 1958 Alfred Hitchcock movie of the same name. The movie was filmed partly at the hotel, and a key shot involved the hotel’s staircase.
The film Vertigo stars James Stewart as Johnny (Scottie) Ferguson, Kim Novak as Madeleine Elster/Judy Barton and the city of San Francisco as itself.
The York Hotel 940 Sutter Street: When Scottie first catches a glimpse of Judy Barton, he follows her back to her hotel and invites her to dinner at Ernie’s. Judy’s room is located on the third floor of the hotel, whose interiors were all created back in Hollywood. The flashing green neon of the “Hotel Empire” sign creates a ghostly effect for Judy’s transformation into Scottie’s make-believe vision of Madeleine, although the neon sign was replaced when the Hotel was re-named The York Hotel.
Visitors to the city take the Vertigo Movie Tour of San Francisco. According to Vertigo’s associate producer, Hitchcock often picked a location and then developed a story to be filmed there. He liked to show a familiar location and introduce a twist of malice. When he first saw San Francisco, he said it would be a good place for a murder mystery, and he chose a French novel, “D’Entre les Morts”(From Among the Dead). It’s a story of deception and obsession, of love lost and regained, and of course, Hitchcock’s signature plot twist at the end.
The first annual Bay Area’s namers summit, sponsored by Igor and Eat My Words, was a smashing success. Alexandra has all the juicy gossip and lots of photos of who all was there.
Quiznos now has around one-fifth the number of stores Subway has, but is the number one sandwich store in terms of growth, while Subway continues to tread water. It’s time for Subway to get bold and reinvent, or die.
Perhaps they could run with this campaign:
From All Headline News:
Playboy, like many other magazines throughout the nation, has not done so well on Wall Street with shares falling about 18 percent in 2006. Wall Street is not forecasting much improvement for 2007.
Wall Street may not be impressed, but those outperforming contrarians at Rochester, NY based money management firm Manning and Napier (cheap plug for my dad’s firm) are sticking with what they know, the Playboy brand:
Virge Trotter, an analyst with Manning and Napier Advisors, said, “People have questioned the long-term ability of Playboy to survive but we think it will survive. We like the plans they have in cable and licensing and the valuation is cheap enough that not a lot has to work for the stock to rebound.”
All it will take is a few million snowbound Upstate New Yorkers…
After Charlize Theron, perhaps the next best thing to come from South Africa is Goats do Roam.
Speaking of roaming goats gnomes, guess who’s traveling to San Francisco to hang out with Igor and other namers at Goats Gone Wild?
Igor and Eat My Words are hosting an extravagant affair for those in the naming business. It’s happening on February 13, and the confirmed guest list includes sentient beings from Catchword, Salt, Landor, Interbrand, Metaphor, Lexicon, Idiom, Imagineering, Stoked Brands, etc.
So if you work at a naming firm or you are a domesticated farm animal, or both, send us an email and we’ll try and get you on the list.
THE MENU
- Pesto baked brie & imported cheeses with fresh fruit, rustic breads & olives
- Miniature filet mignon with balsamic caramelized onions & Roquefort
- Spicy crab & scallop cakes with a cilantro lime aioli
- Mini phyllo cups filled with spinach sun dried tomatoes feta cheese & olive tapenade
- Smoked salmon wraps w baby spinach sweet onions & goat cheese
- Marinated mushrooms, roasted beets, artichoke hearts, grilled asparagus platter with a roasted garlic saffron aioli
- Ahi tartars on crisp wonton chips with wasabi aioli & tobiko caviar
THE NAMERS
- Abnu, Wordlab
- Alexandra Watkins, Eat My Words
- Alton Wright, Wright Brands
- Amy Sherman
- Andrea Michaels, Acme Naming
- Anthony Shore, Landor
- Aaron Hall, Catchword
- Burt Alper, Catchword
- Carol Miller, Red Pentameter
- Daniel Edelstein
- Eunice Park, Landor
- Dave Hurlbert
- Deborah Schatten, Brandese
- Frank Binney
- Jay Jurisich, Igor
- Jonathan Littman, Simmer Branding Studio
- Lisa Awrey
- Marc Hershon, Simmer Branding Studio
- Maria Cypher, Catchword
- Mark Gunnion
- Marty Neumeier, Neutron LLC
- Nan Budinger, Metaphor
- Nancy Friedman, Wordworking
- Reed Kirk Rahlmann
- Sandra Lee Messer
- Shannon De Jong
- Steve Cecil, Wherewords
- Steve Manning, Igor
- Steve Price, Lexicon
- Susan Manning (no relation)
- Susan Carp, Imagineering
- Tate Linden, Stoked Brands
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A theatre in Florida has had to change the title of a charity production of The Vagina Monologues on its marquee, after a woman complained that it was offensive.
The new name? They’ve decided on ‘The Hoohaa Monologues’.
Did you mean Vagina Monologues hahaha?
Two days later, The Hoohaa Monologues was restored to its original title — The Vagina Monologues — after the play’s organizers demanded it be changed back.
The organizers are a group of Florida Coastal School of Law students who said the sign had to read the play’s original title because they have rights to the well-known play only if they do not allow any censorship of its content.
Posted: February 27th, 2007 |
Category: Uncategorized