We had a lot of fun exploring ways to communicate speed and ease-of-use for this high-tech brand. The interesting challenge in this case was to find a name that was appropriate as both a company name and a product name, while also having an available dot-com.

The Kickfire team did a great job taking the name we created and shaping it into a great brand. We think Arami Design created a cool company logo and implemented it quite beautifully throughout the Kickfire web site. Just check out the web site and flash demo, and you’ll see what I mean!

I’ve experienced a slightly different, but likely related tendency in my years as a naming expert. Clients often have an uncanny (if irrational) draw to names that *they* came up with. Their names can be off-message and totally unavailable as trademarks, but if the CEO coined it, the chances of it ending up on the product increase exponentially. Seems odd to pay for a naming consultant if you’re only going to use what you already came up with. But what do I know?

Vivaty is like Second Life, but better, much much better! It doesn’t require downloading clunky software onto your computer and therefore it isn’t as slow as molasses (ahem, Second Life). Instead, Vivaty is a lightweight application that can be seamlessly embedded in various web and social-networking sites like Facebook and Yahoo.

We got to see and play with a demo of the product while we were working on the naming project. And rest assured that I, Catchword’s resident social networking fiend, will be signing up for my beta Vivaty account ASAP!

Read the great NY Times article here, or read the PDF here.

Read the WSJ article, or read it as a PDF.

Certainly LG doesn’t intend the Rumor to be used only for gossip-mongering. The phone has a 1.3 megapixel camera and camcorder, is an MP3 player, and has advanced Bluetooth connectivity capabilities. None of its features really set it apart from the dozens of other phones that have the same feature set. It’s not even a particularly stylish phone.

LG overcame these obstacles by choosing an edgy name that’s memorable and has some relevance to the product. Rumors usually aren’t good things. They’re often created and spread with the intention to scandalize and hurt others. But, edgy names can be given a positive spin. (Take Flickr or Yelp for example.) With Rumor, LG is using rumor’s negative meaning to distinguish the phone amongst its competitors, a tactic that will help it stick in people’s minds (it worked on me!). Even Rumor’s website cleverly uses the rumor theme with flash animation characters asking you the viewer questions like “Have you heard about Rumor’s Qwerty keyboard?”

I like this name a lot. It’s great that LG took a risk and adopted an edgy name and extended its potential with smart, relevant advertising. Bravo!

It seems everyone’s jumping on the green brandwagon.  Trademark filings incorporating “green” jumped 143% between 2006 and 2007, versus under 5% for “red” and “blue.”  Clorox’s recent introduction of Green Works, a line of biodegradable household cleaners, exemplifies the trend.

“Eco” and “earth” names also showed huge gains (almost doubling), while more general terms like “nature,” “natural,” and “pure” grew less than 20%.

What does all this mean for marketers, going forward?  Are “green” names still golden?  Or are there greener pastures?  Here’s our take on green naming:

Top 5 Green Naming Tips

1) If you’re going to go (or say) “green,” it’s got to be credible.  Consumers are becoming increasingly savvy at evaluating green claims — and increasingly dubious about green names from companies without solid eco-bona fides.

2) Green is an amazing word, communicating nature, vibrance, sustainability, eco-awareness, and more in one friendly syllable.  But aside from overuse, in the not-so-distant future the claim itself will become a point of parity.  Marketers will have to look to other naming differentiators.

3) If you must say “green” in your name, be sure to pair it with an interesting, even unexpected second word.  And by all means, avoid forced constructions like “Greenovation” and “Greengevity” — which undo the beauty and simplicity of the word.

4) Better yet, look for ways to say “green” without saying “green.”  Consider names that key on the end-benefits of going green, both to the planet and the consumer — living healthier, saving the world, giving to future generations, doing the right thing.  Brands like Seventh Generation, Burt’s Bees, and Tom’s of Maine subtly yet evocatively suggest eco-friendliness.

5) Whether or not you adopt a “green” name, be sure to use packaging (or lack thereof), logo design and other visual cues to telegraph eco-consciousness.  A brand like Method successfully conveys “green” entirely through non-naming marketing tools.

In conjunction with their announcement of a new $280 million fund, IDG Venture Boston has introduced an entirely new identity. Catchword worked with the partners of the firm to develop this new brand name. In the press release, the company had this to say, “As you may know, a flybridge is the open deck above the main bridge on a boat where you go to get a different and better perspective on the water in front of you.  It is a vantage point to better see the water, fish, rocks, land and more.  The name symbolizes who we are and what we do best - collaborate, partner, and provide guidance and perspective.”

We just love the solid reinforcement of their positioning through the brand name. As a naming firm, this is exactly the kind of fresh creative solution we aim to provide: Distinctive, but relevant.

Who’s next?

But from a naming consultant’s perspective, they got lucky. Fiesta is one of those words that has near-global awareness. The Spanish word (meaning festival or celebration, from the Latin festum/festa  meaning “feast”) has transcended borders and is now commonly understood by native English speakers (as well as speakers of dozens of other languages). Because the car is targeted at new car buyers (typically a younger demographic), the idea of a celebration ties in nicely with the broader marketing message for the car (again, across geographic borders).

Creating names with such international consistency is tough. Just ask the folks at VW. Can anyone spell Tuoreg? Taureg? Touareg? Or ask the folks at Buick. Who knew that Lacrosse was a Canadian slang term for masturbation? If they had done the linguistic research we offer our clients, they would have known before they launched.

Some of you may want to include the infamous “Nova” in this mix. However, let us dispel the myth once more. Yes,  when literally translated, “no va” would mean “doesn’t go” in Spanish. Yet the car is still sold (quite successfully) in Spanish-speaking countries. This is possible because people don’t usually parse brand names this way. I love the counter-example offered by Snopes.com: would anyone think twice about buying a dinette set that used the brand “Notable”? (Get it?)

Anyway, back to the subject at hand. Kudos to Ford for coming up with (and now relaunching) a brand name that sends the right message to a global audience. If any of you readers out there are looking for a new brand name that functions equally well in multiple international markets, Catchword can help.

One of my “golden rules of naming” is that parents shouldn’t tell their friends what names they are considering before they name the baby. (You tend to get mostly negative feedback pre-birth and nothing but positive feedback post-birth.) The NYT reporter John Tierney aptly points out that parents considering names like “Ima Hogg” or “Helen Troy” should probably check with a few friends first (maybe even your favorite naming company).

You don’t need a license to have a kid, but maybe you should be forced to get approval for the name you *think* you want to assign to your child. The poor kid named “Favre” certainly would agree (see earlier post).
I say again: leave creative naming to the professionals.