We named a new consumer product company “Improv Electronics”. We also named Improv’s first product, “Boogie Board“, which went on sale last week.
Via Gizmodo:
If you thought a boogie board was a salt-water vessel that lets you skim the waves, think again. Improv Electronics’ Boogie Board is a pressure-sensitive 
tablet that uses a watch battery for power. It’s like a digital blackboard!
The Reflex LCD doesn’t need any power to keep the scribbles and drawings on the screen, with the watch battery only being put into use when the screen is erased. The watch battery will last for 50,000 erases, which makes the $29.97 board cost 15 times less for each erase than a normal sheet of paper. It’s ideal for kids, or perhaps artists who care about the long-term saving associated with the Boogie Board.
Read more: Boogie Board, company naming, consumer product naming, Improv Electronics
Are your company or product name brainstorming attempts long on storm and short on brains? Igor has over 18,000 brains in stock, ready to help you name whatever needs naming — most have very low mileage, are hardly ever driven during the week, and are used only sparingly on weekends to scan refrigerator contents and such. Our collection of brains can be picked through at the Wordlab Wordboard, our free naming and branding brainstorming forum. Jump in and pick the brains!
Tips for picking a brain:
1. Do not pick if the skin is too green–it’s not ripe yet.
2. The brain should be viscous and phlegmatic, yet hold up to a good thumping. Not too firm, not too soft.
3. The end that was twisted from the brain stem should be pliable when you poke your thumb through the outer membrane. If you can’t break the membrane with your fingernail, the brain was picked prematurely.
4. Smell is the most reliable indicator of freshness.
5. Have fun with it, but keep it platonic.
The viable bit of warm and snuggly insurance company AIG has been spun-off and dubbed “Chartis”. A bad name? Well, yes. But that is just what they needed. Sometimes a terrible name is the perfect name. In today’s Insurance Journal, a so-called naming expert spouts off:
According to AIG, Chartis derives from the Greek word for map, which the company said underscores the company’s 90-year history as a global insurance pioneer.
While AIG is apparently not alone in liking the name, is Chartis a name to remember?
Perhaps not, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
One naming expert says the new corporate moniker is neither memorable nor snappy — and in that regard the name Chartis is perfect for what AIG wants to do, which is to distance itself from its old company and not draw a lot of attention to itself while doing so.
“It’s the kind of name that’s in one ear and out the other,” said Steven Manning, managing director for Igor, a well-known international naming and branding agency based in San Francisco. “It blends into the woodwork, which is just what the assignment was.”
Even the logo, a compass, is predictable, Manning noted.
Manning likened the move to Enron’s adopting Prisma Energy and Phillip Morris choosing Altria.
“It’s about breaking the association with AIG, like going into witness protection,” he said.
Chartis Insurance is using www.chartisinsurance.com for its Web site. Chartis Group uses chartis.com and chartisgroup.com.
Chartis Insurance, headquartered in New York, of course, has quite a head start on other companies picking a name. It includes the profitable AIG/AIU Commercial Insurance, Foreign General Insurance and Private Client Group operations. It had a combined statutory surplus of $32.1 billion worldwide at year-end 2008 and more than 40 million clients around the globe.
AIG/AIU hopes that the financially strong Chartis will be recognized for its success apart from the AIG name, which has been tainted by actions out of its London financial products unit that eventually resulted in a U.S. federal government bailout. The P/C units now being branded as Chartis did not get into trouble and did not require bailout funds.
As we gleefully pranced and flounced about, celebrating the 250 thousandth download of the Igor Naming Guide; we got a complaint. At 115 pages, the ultimate free, how-to resource for naming companies and products, had gotten too long.
Having nothing better to do, we responded. The naming guide is now available in two different lengths: soul-crushing (115 pages) and moderately-irritating (26 pages).
Either version of the naming guide can be downloaded here.
Wharton at UPenn and USC Annenberg School for Communication both chime in on The Igor Naming Guide.
Read more: naming companies, naming consultants
It’s a bad time for A-list biotech companies.
From Anesiva to Avigen, a number of biotech companies with names starting with an “a” and including a “v” are facing tough times. So is it the name — or the companies — that are not so sweet?
Avigen Inc. of Alameda will liquidate after a five-month war of words with its largest shareholders. Anesiva Inc. of South San Francisco, which on March 25 said it has enough cash to last into April, hopes to gross $3 million in a rights offering. And Avicena Group Inc. of Palo Alto, while holding on with $1 million raised from foreign investors last fall, was kicked off the NASDAQ bulletin board back in September and hasn’t filed a financial statement with the SEC since May 2008.
“So many biotechs started with that (“a”) pattern, so a disproportionate number are failing now because there are more of them,” said Jay Jurisich, creative director and cofounder of Igor Inc., a San Francisco naming and branding agency.
You can read the rest of the article here.
Read more: naming companies, naming company, naming consultants
Forget MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. There is a new network in town, and its user retention rate is unsurpassed.
See you there!
Behold the companies in our very own industry, naming company names in the company of the names of other naming company names.
Are we biased in our opinion? Absolutely. We believe strongly that the name a naming company names itself is a clue to the kinds of company names they believe in. And if a naming company cannot manage to give itself a distinctive, memorable name that sets itself apart from the slew of competitors you see here, a company name that can evolve into a strong brand within the industry and come to represent more than just the goods and services being offered, how can they possibly convince others that what they fail to do in their own company name they can somehow magically do for their clients?
So a call to arms is in order: Namers, name thyself well! Because you’ve got company.
Are your company or product name brainstorming attempts long on storm and short on brains? Igor has over 12,000 brains in stock, ready to help you name whatever needs naming — most have very low milage, are hardly ever driven during the week, and are used only sparingly on weekends to scan refrigerator contents and such. Our collection of brains can be picked through at the Wordlab Wordboard, our free naming and branding brainstorming forum. Jump in and pick the brains!
Tips for picking a brain:
1. Do not pick if the skin is too green–it’s not ripe yet.
2. The brain should be viscous and phlegmatic, yet hold up to a good thumping. Not too firm, not too soft.
3. The end that was twisted from the brain stem should be pliable when you poke your thumb through the outer membrane. If you can’t break the membrane with your fingernail, the brain was picked prematurely.
4. Smell is the most reliable indicator of freshness.
5. Have fun with it, but keep it platonic.
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