I’m probably late to the game on this one, but:
Really?
Seriously?
Posts Tagged ‘naming blunder’
[Today it was announced that the Russian energy giant Gazprom would enter into a joint venture with the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation. The new firm, to be called Nigaz, is set to build refineries, pipelines and gas power stations in Nigeria.]
Apparently Gazprom, a Global 500 company with nearly 400,000 employees (no exaggeration) doesn’t have a single marketing person who speaks ENGLISH or is even remotely familiar with American slang. YO! Gazprom! I don’t mean to be dissin’ ya’ll, but Shizzle! What the hizzle??? Nigaz??? I might just have to shoot the five witcha, or at least sick the naming po-pos on ya. Again: Nigaz???? Have you NO skrilla to do some of that linguistic or cultural screenin’?? Were you guys crunked up when you thought of that name??? Look, I gotta bounce, I got some, well, stuff I gotta do, but damn, Gazprom. Nigaz?? That sh*t’s cold. Hire a naming company next time.
2/17/09
Covert Ops to Covert Oops: Changing the Blackwater Name Won’t Change Perceptions
By Burt Alper
I know my partner Laurel also blogged this news, but I had to add my two cents. I, too, saw the news last week in the Washington Post announcing that the ominous Blackwater had decided to change its name to Xe. So many fun points to this story … where to begin?
Let’s start with the rationale behind this name change. The company states that it is repositioning itself to focus more on training and less on security. Fair enough, but one wonders if this shift in positioning was the result of the company’s flagship security wing being effectively thrown out of its main customer’s “office” (that being Iraq) and/or as a defensive reaction to the serious black eye marking the company since its “employees” were charged with firing on Iraqi civilians. My first reaction to this announcement was basically the same reaction I had to Phillip Morris becoming Altria: You can take the boy out of danger but you can’t take the danger out of the boy. My guess is that the US Government will be the *only* group that allows this faux wool to be pulled over its eyes. The rest of us know exactly what’s going on.
And don’t even get me started on the new name itself. According to Anne Tyrrel (spokesperson for Xe née Blackwater) as quoted the Washington Post article, the name has no meaning whatsoever, and was generated internally. No kidding? I’ll give them a half a point for finding a name that is short. Three demerits for having to tell people how to pronounce the name (hard to find a two-letter name that no one can pronounce). Two additional demerits for picking a name that sounds more like a Chinese security training company than an American one. And two additional demerits for picking a name that they can’t own.
And if I were running Xe Currency Exchange (the company that owns “xe.com”), I would be talking quite seriously with my attorney right now. Trademark law is designed to prevent customer confusion, but it also has stipulations preventing companies from disparaging an existing brand. No one is likely to confuse DolceGabbana Waste Removal Services with the fashion brand, but should such a company exist, it could seriously tarnish the real owner’s brand.
So for those of you who wonder “why should I hire a naming consultant” you now have your answer. First, we wouldn’t have let you use Blackwater in the first place. (Apparently named for the brackash water of the Great Dismal Swamp near the company’s headquarters—whose great idea was that?) Second, we would have told you that you need to do more than change your name to change your image. (Perhaps time will tell if Xe is able to migrate its image to be slightly more favorable than that of [insert hated villain].) Third, we would have helped the company find a name that reflects its newly desired image: serious, trustworthy, secure, and American. Xe fails on all counts. I’m not suggesting that all names need to have meaning to be effective, but one would think that a company such as this could have come up with *something*. The new name sounds more Web 2.0 than anti-terrorist contractor.
Next time somone asks why pay for a name, I’ll just say, “Hey, you can always do it yourself. The guys at Blackwater did it twice, and look how great things turned out for them.”
The announcement was so made so quietly that one might even call it stealthy – or perhaps covert. Over the long Presidents’ Day weekend, when people were distracted, busy with Valentine’s Day, and generally thinking about whether they would have jobs to come back to, the military contractor Blackwater officially changed its name to Xe. In a note to employees, president Gary Jackson said the name change reflects the company’s new focus, and he indicated Xe would not actively pursue new security business. One wonders how far away from the security business Xe would need to get in order to escape its reputation for lawlessness, arrogance, and needless violence. Perhaps they plan on opening a rescue center for really cute animals, like pandas and polar bears.
According to the AP report, “Xe” is supposed to be pronounced “zee”; an op-ed in the LA Times suggests is might be named for the element xenon, one of the noble gases. Do they mean to suggest that they are colorless, odorless, and heavy? That they are generally unreactive? That they have 54 protons? That they make a really bright light? Honestly, I can’t imagine why they chose this name, since xenon, while quite useful for lasers, ion propulsion engines, and medical imaging, isn’t much to write home about. And if they’re trying to interpret the word “noble” in a non-chemical way, they are dreaming. Blackwater = noble? NOT.
It’s likely they were just trying to pick something meaningless and kinda cool, a name that had no relationship at all to security, wars, and, er, murder. It’s short and distinctive, for sure, but unfortunately they don’t own the exact .com domain (xe.com is a handy currency exchange site – I have it bookmarked). Unfortunately, I think they chose something so distinctive that no one will ever forget that they are the Outfit Formerly Known As Blackwater.
I personally got a big laugh out of this name because in science fiction/internet circles, “xe” is often used an a gender-neutral pronoun, as in “Xe laughed” or “I wonder if xe can join us for the chat” – a necessity when communicating online where gender is often (deliberately) blurred or hidden. Maybe by choosing Xe, the Blackwater fellows are really trying to tell us that they’re transsexual Star Trek fans. (I hope that’s not true – it would give a bad name to transsexual Star Trek fans everywhere!)
