Bassackwords

Xobni, the word “inbox” spelled backwards, has created a new way to look at your email. Xobni takes the effort out of organizing, searching, and navigating your email.

What happens to a company or product with a name that is bass ackwards?

Bill Hicks on advertising and marketing

The late great Mr. Hicks has something to say about the profession that we here at Igor ply as our trade on a daily basis.

As was his way, Bill is right on the money. In this clip he serves as the anti-Seth, which is always a good thing. Enjoy.

Leap Year Naming and Branding

Happy Leap Day, Anthony.

Every four years, we take a look at leap names.

Leap Frog = good name
Leapster = bad name

I Love Blow

I Love Blow. And I love the job Blow energy drink mix has done with their product naming and branding. But the maker of this new energy drink mix powder you can add to your favorite beverage is coming under pressure to rehab its image. I don’t know whether it’s the name, the powder, or the images of sexy, half-naked young women on their website.

Worried that Blow and similar products are glorifying drug use, the Food and Drug Administration sent a letter to the makers of the energy drink mix last month, threatening legal action if the company does not rehab its image.

Named after the well-known street name for cocaine, Blow comes under scrutiny for being packaged and marketed as an alternative to cocaine, as well as for not complying with federal drug laws.

The letter states that Blow itself is an unapproved drug, “intended to affect the structure or function of the body.”

It also states that the energy drink mix does not have an FDA-approved application that legalizes its sale.

With a logo spelled out in white, grainy powder and its product sold in vials, the similarities between Blow and its illegal namesake are evident.

Last year the brouhaha was over an energy drink called Cocaine.

On May 5th, 2007, Cocaine was pulled from U.S. shelves as a result of the FDA’s decision that Cocaine was “illegally marketing their drink as an alternative to street drugs”. Redux Beverages began working on a new name for the product immediately. At the end of May, 2007, the Redux team decided to change the name to “No Name:” energy drink, with the new can label featuring a large blank space for fans to write their chosen name for the drink, covering the “Cocaine” on the can itself. On June 17th, 2007, the drink was redistributed in the U.S. under the new labelling.

However, Redux Beverages has recently announced that the drink will return to shelves under its original name early 2008. Cocaine’s founder and senior partner, Jamey Kirby, always believed they would get their name back. Said Kirby in June 2007, “Oh, we’ll get our name back. We’ll get it back.”

The drink is now available online at www.drinkcocaine.com or in local beverage stores around the U.S.

The beverage is also available in Europe, where it is still sold as Cocaine Energy Drink rather than Insert Name Here: as it is in the U.S.

Opium perfume? The name’s not so much a problem for the perfume by Yves Saint Laurent as the advertising, which caused outrage for being too sexually suggestive and likely to cause “serious or widespread offence”.

The Evolution of Tech Companies’ Logos and Evocative Names

Buzzing around the blogosphere, there’s an interesting post about the evolution of tech companies’ logos that caught our attention with this story about the Nokia logo.

In 1865, Knut Fredrik Idestam established a wood-pulp mill in Tampere, south-western Finland. It took on the name Nokia after moving the mill to the banks of the Nokianvirta river in the town of Nokia. The word “Nokia” in Finnish, by the way, means a dark, furry animal we now call the Pine Marten weasel.

The modern company we know as the Nokia Corporation was actually a merger between Finnish Rubber Works (which also used a Nokia brand), the Nokia Wood Mill, and the Finnish Cable Works in 1967.

Before focusing on telecommunications and cell phones, Nokia produced paper products, bicycle and car tires, shoes, television, electricity generators, and so on.

Source: about-nokia.com

Recently, Nokia evolved its naming and branding strategy, as well, with evocative product names, such as Luna, Arte, and Evolve.