Babies, flowers and teddy bears…
…can a name change be far behind?
Category: Igor
The Igor-named “Aria” resort and casino opens its doors
Igor’s latest naming work, The MGM / Dubai World hotel and casino “Aria”, has its grand opening in Las Vegas today. This marks the fifth hotel thus far in Igor’s naming portfolio.
MGM Aria, Las Vegas
Via The Las Vegas Sun:
The centerpiece of CityCenter — the Aria Resort & Casino — will open Wednesday, marking a day of grand opening celebrations for the $8.5 billion project…
…The 4,004-room resort and casino will feature more than 150,000 square feet of gaming space, a 215,000-square-foot pool area with 50 cabanas and an 80,000-square-foot spa, the largest among MGM Mirage properties.
The resort also will include 10 bars and lounges, and 16 restaurants. Aria will be home to Cirque du Soleil’s newest show, “Viva Elvis,” which takes guests on a trip through Elvis Presley’s life and music, with first performances beginning Friday.
Until Wednesday, VIPs and company executives will be testing the waters at Aria, ensuring the resort is ready for its first public guests.
Don’t fret, we weren’t invited either.
Posted: December 15th, 2009 |
Category: Igor Richard Branson launches the Igor-named “gogo” in-flight WiFi service
Igor named the new in-flight wifi service gogo (case study here). Below, Richard Branson officially launches gogo service aboard Virgin America.
Posted: November 9th, 2009 |
Category: Igor The Color of Money is…Changeable
One of the funniest aspects of alleged naming & branding firm Landor, is the ridiculous rationale they cite for the work they produce. Oftentimes they will, with capricious authority, justify a design based on what certain colors “mean” or “communicate”. These “reasons” become all the more comical when parroted by the officers of their most recent victim.
Landor’s latest for a financial company is a re-worked logo. Fiserve’s Chief Executive Jeffery Yabuki, performs the squawk of shame for the Journal Sentinel:
The new logo, which is the word fiserv. – with a period – is orange because it’s different from the common industry logo color of blue and “has a certain heat and energy to it, but not the kind of danger you perceive when you see red,” Yabuki said.
No red menace here.
Red bad. Red is color of Danger. Danger bad for financial company image.
Unless of course you can sell it to another financial client. From the bowels of the Landor site:
Landor created an identity and retail space for HSBC Direct. The use of white communicates the simplicity of the brand, while red projects a contemporary attitude.
Don’t be alarmed, it’s just HSBC Direct’s Landorian luminosity.
Landor founder, Walter Landor gazing inappropriately at his half-son, Blandor.
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Says Blandor the Imponderable: “I fondly recall Poppy and I attending the semi-annual wisdom tooth convention. As we sat on our haunches, grooming each other and eating our sack lunch of turkey biscotti and marshmallow toast, we would randomly jump up and shout, “Wottle up the bull throttle!”. We would then travel the 3 hours home, in complete silence, until our arrival at Mandible Station.” |
More on the misspent journey of Blandor’s life.
Posted: September 9th, 2009 |
Category: Igor Recommended from on high
Wharton at UPenn and USC Annenberg School for Communication both chime in on The Igor Naming Guide.
Starbucks worried about coffee and cereal shortage
Starbucks “Pairings” promotion seems straight forward at first glance. In this poster, snapped in Sausalito this morning, the deal is latte & oatmeal:
But the fine print could cause a panic: “*While supplies last”
WTF?
Oxymoron of the Decade – “Voluntary Regulation”
Via today’s NY Times:
WASHINGTON — The chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, a longtime proponent of deregulation, acknowledged on Friday that failures in a voluntary supervision program for Wall Street’s largest investment banks had contributed to the global financial crisis, and he abruptly shut the program down…
…Christopher Cox, the commission chairman, said he agreed that the oversight program was “fundamentally flawed from the beginning.”
“The last six months have made it abundantly clear that voluntary regulation does not work,” he said in a statement. The program “was fundamentally flawed from the beginning, because investment banks could opt in or out of supervision voluntarily. The fact that investment bank holding companies could withdraw from this voluntary supervision at their discretion diminished the perceived mandate” of the program, and “weakened its effectiveness,” he added.
What the hell, let’s give him the “Moronic Statement of the Decade” award while we are at it, for, one more time:
“The last six months have made it abundantly clear that voluntary regulation does not work”.
The last six months??? How about the last fifty thousand years? Jackass.
Here’s an idea, you know that program whereby the I.R.S. may audit you? Let’s make that voluntary — you know, opt-in / opt-out, whatever works for you.
Or that annoying thingy where the cops pull you over for drunk driving? Same deal, you want out of that program? No sweat, we’ll give you a special decal for your windshield. You know, the “honor” system. Worth a try. Who knows, it could work.
“Who are these guys?” (thanks Paul, for everything)
Igor’s latest naming work, Whoop, launches.
Formally called “Xosphere”, they came to us for a re-name. From the Whoop site:
Whoop makes it easy for every company, agency or individual to create, publish and share rich mobile content to almost every mobile device. Not just text, but pictures, videos and, well, everything imaginable for mobile entertainment, marketing, communications, commerce and social networking. With Whoop, you can share your stuff with more than 3.5 billion phones in every country on the planet.
Whoop. Everything mobile.
Did we mention we named Whoop? O.K., we are done here.
Posted: August 25th, 2008 |
Category: Igor, advertising, company names, identity, name changes, pop culture Landor: The Art of the Steal
Sometimes imitation is flattery, sometimes it demonstrates a complete lack of originality and / or corporate ethics.
Naming and branding parody site Landor has posted an article in which they claim authorship of called “How not to name“, accompanied by a photo of Anthony Shore, head of global naming at Landor. It is posted on a section of their website that they ironically named “Thinking”.
Here is an except (from point 2, paragraph 3):
This “positivity principle” explains why a scandalous name (Virgin), a slur (Banana Republic), and a small, hairy larva (Caterpillar) are perceived positively.
And here is how this thought was written five years earlier, both on the Igor website and in the Igor Naming Guide:
Unless everyone understands the positioning and the correlation between it and an evocative name, this is the type of feedback that evocative names will generate:
Virgin Airlines
- Says “we’re new at this”
- Public wants airlines to be experienced, safe and professional
- Investors won’t take us seriously
- Religious people will be offended
Caterpillar
- Tiny, creepy-crawly bug
- Not macho enough – easy to squash
- Why not “bull” or “workhorse”?
- Destroys trees, crops, responsible for famine
Banana Republic
- Derogatory cultural slur
- You’ll be picketed by people from small, hot countries
The Landor article “How Not to Name” is written in a format that states popular misconceptions and the debunks them. Here they attack the mistaken idea that focus groups are helpful in choosing company or product names (from point 6, paragraph 1):
As a rule, it’s smart to entrust strategic business decisions to someone who trades an hour of their time for $25 and a few handfuls of M&Ms.
And here is how Steve Manning, co-founder of Igor, expressed the same idea 5 years earlier in an article in Elsevier Food International :
“If you’re trusting the future of your brand to a bunch of people who are willing to give up their time for $45 and a stale sandwich, you’re in trouble.”
Was Mr. Shore of Landor aware of Mr. Maninng’s quote? Of course he was, Mr. Shore was quoted in the very same article as Mr. Manning.
The final insult comes at the end of this “Landor authored” naming article:
© 2007 Landor Associates. All rights reserved.
Reached for comment, Anthony Shore, head of global naming at Landor had this to say.
Posted: July 25th, 2008 |
Category: Igor, company names, identity, industry insider, language, name changes, product names, taglines Give the ladies what they want
The marketing geniuses at Neutrogena, realizing how crowded the women’s skin care product sector is, have started selling vibrators. But not just any vibrator, a vibrator that a woman can, with head held high, take through airport security, buy at the drugstore, and leave in plain sight for the kids to find. Brilliant.
It’s the Neutrogena Wave, a sex toy with plausible deniability built-in.
Here’s to wiggle room:
Posted: July 17th, 2008 |
Category: Igor, WTF, advertising, company names, language, pop culture, product names 83 articles about naming and branding companies and products
83 articles about naming and branding companies and products.
Posted: June 10th, 2008 |
Category: Igor, advertising, company names, identity, language, name changes, pop culture, product names, taglines 
Scotch tape defense against chemical and biological attack
Magic Tape: This year Tom Ridge sent millions of Americans scrambling to Home Depot when the Department of Homeland Security advised us all to cover our butts with duct tape and plastic sheeting. As a public service and in true Consumer Reports fashion, we’ve been researching some cost-saving measures for saving your life, and we discovered that the Scotch tape collecting lint in your kitchen junk drawer is also a great defense against chemical and biological attack, at about a tenth of the cost of duct tape.
Here is a 60-year-old 3M ad, offering comfort and security through the magic of Scotch tape:
Here’s the text copy of the ad, straight from a war of another era but cheerfully ready to lend a helping hand in our own war de jour:
If War Gas falls from the sky…
HE’LL BE READY!
Months ago, foresighted Chemical Warfare Service and Quartermaster Corps engineers designed a protective covering to guard our soldiers against blister gas. It’s a tent-like cloak big enough to completely cover its wearer, pack, rifle and all. Made of special gas-proof cellophane, it stops the searing splash of deadly vapors which burn through ordinary clothing, shoes, and skin. Even its seams are gas-proof — they’re sealed with your old friend “Scotch” Tape.
Stopping penetration of destructive chemicals, man-made or natural, is one of “Scotch” Tape’s commonest war jobs. It is used as a gas-proof, water-proof seal on scores of vital supply cartons used by our armed forces.
Naturally war needs have first call on “Scotch” Tape for the duration. We hope that if you miss its convenient help around the house, you’ll remember it’s still working for you wherever it is. When these war jobs are done, “Scotch” Tape will be available again for home use…better and handier than ever before.
Just be sure not to let the searing splash of deadly vapors land on your exposed Prada loafers or Manolo Blahnik pumps when you’re out on the town — otherwise, have a great day.
Posted: November 8th, 2003 |
Category: Igor