Last week the Twittersphere was chirping loudly and negatively in response to reports that Belgian-owned Inbev would be replacing the Budweiser brand name with “America” on beer cans, as shown above. No bow-tie can shape in this campaign, but the logo is to be on the can’s back.
Headlines like these, suggesting a permanent
– Mark Prus, Principal, NameFlash
I’m often asked by companies if they should change the name of a product, service or even the company itself. Here is my shortlist of 10 really good reasons to change your name:
As many anxiously await the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s (TTAB) decision in Blackhorse v. Pro Football, Inc., a trademark cancellation action seeking to revoke six federal service mark registrations containing the R-Word (issued between 1967 and 1990), the pressure is mounting for the NFL team located near our Nation’s Capital to stop
The possibility of a long overdue name change for the Washington Redskins is trending on Bing at the moment.
I’m glad to see the pressure continue to mount. I’ve always said, it is only a matter of time, hopefully sooner than later.
Check out the coverage on the Huffington Post, WUSA, Christian Science
—Mark Prus, Principal, NameFlashSM Name Development
Naming contests. Sounds like a good idea, right? A company needs a new name and it decides to engage its employees to come up with a new name. What could go wrong?
Well, you could end up with a name like Mondelez.
Just to be clear, I’m
A local controversy has recently appeared over the name of one of Minneapolis’s local lakes – Lake Calhoun. Apparently, this lake was named after John C. Calhoun who, as secretary of war, established Fort Snelling in Minnesota. According to John Winters, a “local civil war history buff,” Mr. Calhoun held pro-slavery views during the early
—Mark Prus, Marketing Consultant at NameFlashSM
In my NameFlashSM name development business, I sometimes get asked by clients, “Should I change my brand name?” From a purely selfish standpoint my answer should be “YES!” because I get paid to generate names! But the reality is that there are times when you should not
I’m mostly wearing my consumer hat today, having just returned from a youth baseball tournament in Phoenix this past weekend, where we stayed at the six month new Drury Inn & Suites shown above. As you may recall, and if so, you will have noticed the irony because, last September I riffed about the Drury name and asked whether a name change might be in order, to avoid the inevitably negative dreary name associations.
In case you’re wondering, I didn’t set out to test my previously stated opinions about the name and whether it actually represented the brand well, but as it clearly was meant to be, and as it clearly was meant outside of my control, the team we traveled with selected this hotel, so I anxiously awaited the trip and then paid close attention to whether my perceptions about the name would match the actual brand experience.
I’ll have to say, I was pleasantly surprised by all three Ps: The property, the people, and the price. It was almost as though someone had read my previous post, from about six months ago, and purposefully set out to distance the name from the actual brand experience (after all, you can’t even read the brand name in the website photo can you?), building a beautiful and non-dreary hotel property with real curb-appeal and attractive interior ammenities, staffing it with amazingly cheery, caring and genuine employees, all at a very reasonable price point. More likely, my prior post simply was based on incomplete information. Oh, and this is not a paid endorsement, and I did pay full price for the room, or I’d have to tell you, as we learned from Steven Weinberg’s analysis of the new FTC guidelines applicable to bloggers. Anyway, this got me thinking about judging books, and even brands, by their covers.
We’re all taught at an early age, not to judge a book by its cover, but we do. I suspect that most of us also judge a brand by its cover too. Cover of a brand?Continue Reading Judging A Brand By Its Cover
Back in May, I wrote a piece entitled “Re-Branding Madness in Washington” Overlooks Obvious: The Washington Redskins,” discussing the trademark cancellation action that I filed on behalf of seven prominent Native American leaders back in September 1992 (Harjo et al v. Pro-Football, Inc.), and calling for the football team to “hire a branding
Trying my consumer’s hat on for size this Labor Day, I’ll ask the question: Would you pay good money and choose to stay a night or two in the hotel pictured above, without having a personal recommendation from a very, very good friend?
Me neither, says my wife, for our family.
Did the name have anything to do with your decision? In other words, might you be leery of weary desk clerks, eerie hallways, and dreary rooms, at the Drury Inn?
We were. Sorry, Drury Inn.
But, with far more cheery sounding and well-known national hotel brands readily available like Courtyard, Crown Plaza, Hilton, Hyatt Regency, Westin, Sheraton, Hampton Inn, Residence Inn, and Holiday Inn (or, should I say, H?), do you really blame us for our uninformed theory?
Remember my family road trip this past summer that revealed a trend toward single letter chewing gum brands and a discussion of non-verbal logos that can stand alone? Well, on that same trip, driving through the heartland, along the various interstates we traveled, we noticed Drury Inn after Drury Inn, a hotel chain we had never encountered before. We stayed a few nights in downtown St. Louis, near the above-pictured Drury Inn, but we never had the interest or courage to take a closer look.
Actually my wife felt even more strongly about it than I did, she thought that the various Drury Inns we saw (from the outside) looked and sounded, well, quite dreary. Apparently we aren’t the first to make the “dreary” word association with Drury Inn, especially among those who have expressed online their rather negative experiences in spending nights and money (on the inside of one) (here, here, here, here, here, and here). One could say that deciding to use a name so easily a target for a hotel chain starts to make the resulting wounds look self-inflicted.
Sorry again, Drury Inn.
Recognizing the practice of many popular national hotel brands to select and adopt brand names that evoke feelings of comfort and pleasure (Courtyard, Holiday Inn, Days Inn, Sleep Inn, and Comfort Inn), I was left rather intrigued with the peculiar naming decision involving Drury Inn, at least enough to take a closer look online. Armed with a Wikipedia reference along with the hotel chain’s website, I was surprised to learn, having never head of the brand before, that it has been around since 1973, it has 130 locations in twenty states, and it has won some awards too.
Now, while Mr. Drury, and other family members, might defend use of the family name based on the recognized success and longevity of their business, someone less emotionally attached to the surname might ask where the business would be with a better brand name for a hotel chain.Continue Reading Re-Branding and Pink Elephants: Doesn’t “Drury Inn” Need a Name Change?