Monday, January 4, 2010
10 Best and Worst Internet Company Names of the Decade
An article at MarketingProfs.com recently discussed the 10 biggest dot-com naming trends.
These clever trends range from The Hookup, in which two words are linked together to create a whole new word and add it to our vernacular (Think YouTube, which was the winner, and TalkShoe, which was a sad, play-on-accent loser), to The Misspeller (Boku, a phonetic take on the French word beaucoup, won this race, and Cuil- do we really need another way to spell "cool?"- came in last place).
Photo sharing site Flickr came in first for The Letter-Dropper trend, and iStalkr, last. A bit intrigued by this creepy dot-com, I looked it up. This a tool that allows you to "stalk" those who subscribe to the same feeds as you do (Digg, YouTube, Flickr, etc), and vice versa. In essence, you see what they are reading and they you.
True it is an ill-conceived name, but I am more struck by the idea that someone out there believes we need yet another way to connect with each other. As we begin to have more of a relationship with our computers and our favored websites and articles (and therefore I posit less of a relationship with our human companions), we are inventing more ways to interact without actually interacting. Have the water cooler discussion, just not by the water cooler. One could propose that we are becoming more e-articulate, but less conversationally so. Or perhaps we are intrinsic cataloguers. All this from a site that isn't doing well and is poorly named.
In any case, 10 Best and Worst Internet Company Names of the Decade gives you pause. Every one of the "best" I do use, have used or at the very least have heard of. Of the "worst," only a couple have ever made it across my computer screen. Their bad names in consideration, it is also their function that has doomed them. Most of them are something I just don't have use for.
So here are a few questions to consider-
What companies have come before and what will come after? Will people get the name? What relevance does it carry? Is there any weight to it?
That being said, I still want dibs on bomb.com.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Ad Age's 'Hottest Brands of '09' Report
I love 'best of' reports at the end of every year.
(Make sure you read the Pabst Blue Ribbon article. I warn it will make you thirsty...and it'll insight a strong desire to visit the nearest seedy, hole-in-the-wall bar where there's two pool tables and solely Metallica on the jukebox. Not a damned thing wrong with that.)
I particularly found the report on theqBolt Bus interesting. Greyhound took a huge leap of faith; ditched it's century-old brand and created a new one, called the Bolt Bus. Pretty gutsy.
More than just re-packaging an old concept, they recreated the bus riding experience for modern consumers/travelers. They now offer consumers amenities that are RELEVANT. Free Wi-Fi on buses; seat back electrical plugs; scalable pricing that encourages people to ride Bolt because more riders make ticket prices go down. There is even a $1 seat option.
They conducted some PR efforts, which the article doesn't detail, along with street team activities, which I think is brilliant. Everyone always goes to the Web these days. (Always fun to look away from the herd and consider doing something that's not the norm...).
What really intrigues me about the Bolt Bus is that it's essentially the same product/service that Greyhound offered for 100 years. BUT - Greyhound had the insight and confidence to look at their business plan, adjust it to meet the needs of modern demands, then let those changes inform its marketing plan. Pretty simple. Pretty brilliant. Also, pretty much a goldmine: ridership passed the 2 million mark in one year. Nice.
Labels: branding
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Brand Bubble
There is a new book coming out called The Brand Bubble: The Looming Crisis in Brand Value and How to Avoid It. The authors both hold senior positions at Young & Rubicam (Y&R), part of the largest ad agency holding company in the world, WPP Group. Their book sounds an alarm based on a gap in value between how consumers and investors perceive brands. The authors have a proprietary research tool that they use to measure value, and they've found that investors reward companies with greater brand awareness, even if consumers don't see much utility. I've yet to read this book but fully intend too. Just though you might enjoy a suggested piece of reading and if you don't you'll probably have fun playing around the Brand Asset Evaluator widget on the books website. Check it out below.
www.thebrandbubble.com
D Amundson
Labels: Advertising, branding
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