by Anthony Shore, Operative Words

There was a time when a simple, honest name was good enough.



Venerable brands like General Electric, Kentucky Fried Chicken, National Biscuit Company and International Business Machines didn’t hide their business name behind metaphors or fuzzy ideas. Each name was a hammer. It delivered one message with brute, blunt force. And it was good…for a while.‚Ä®‚Ä®

Eventually those companies established a path followed by countless others. They cut short their names to cut free of their restrictions, trading names too burdened with meaning for ones that were utterly meaningless: GE, KFC, Nabisco, IBM.



The trend in naming since has been away from the harsh, direct light of descriptive names and towards the shaded canopy of evocative and arbitrary ones. The change is partly motivated by necessity, as descriptive names are difficult or impossible to protect as trademarks.



But it’s not just the law: It’s a good idea. Descriptive names are similar to other descriptive names so they aren’t differentiated and thus don’t get noticed (not without a ton of money).‚Ä®‚Ä®

Today, the vast majority of brand names are not descriptive at all.

And I think people are getting tired of it.

The pendulum is swinging back, towards names — and marketing in general — that’s honest and bullshit-free. Maybe even humble.

Living in San Francisco, I’ve sought examples of words in commerce that speak the unvarnished truth. I’ve documented some of these sightings with my cell phone camera. Several relate to food because I am a gastropod.‚Ä®‚Ä®‚Ä®‚Ä®‚Ä®‚Ä®‚Ä®

This tidy kiosk is a perfect setting for a brand called Batter. It’s a name that’s immediate, short, and to the point with nothing artificial added. It suggests their baked goods are as pure and simple.Continue Reading Truth is Stronger Than Fiction