Backdoor Gourmet fudge cookies
‘Round the corner: Not quite “hand made,” but the process sounds all natural. Still, it’s gotta’ be tough for these folks to sell a lot of fudge But oh those chunky brownies….can’t you almost just smell them?
Mercedes and alphanumeric car names
Oh Lord won’t you buy me a AMG Coupe CLK 55: Mercedes has long named their car models using alphanumerics. It’s a system we’ve commented on before that is used by most luxury automotive brands (save Rolls Royce) designed to direct the bulk of brand equity to the Mercedes brand name rather than to a particular model. It’s very effective when you need consumers to remember three basic concepts and one or two specialty offshoots. Audi and BMW get there with the 4|6|8 and 3|5|7 designations, respectively.
Mercedes, however, is trying to get consumers to associate alphanumeric labels with nine-plus different ideas.
The bare basics are: C-Class, E-Class, S-Class, CLK-Class, CL-Class, SLK-Class, SL-Class, M-Class, G-Class, with a sprinkling of AMGs, SLRs, CDIs and MLs tossed-in where needed for greater obfuscation. And those are just the alpha vegetables in the alphanumeric soup.
Here is the whole 36-car pile up: C230 Kompressor Sport Coupe, C230 Kompressor Sport Sedan, C240 Luxury Sedan, C240 Luxury Wagon, C320 Sport Coupe, C320 Luxury Sedan, C320 Sport Sedan, C55 AMG, E320 Sedan, E320 CDI, E320 Wagon, E500 Sedan, E500 4MATIC Wagon, E55 AMG, S430 Sedan, S500 Sedan, S55 AMG, S600 Sedan, CLK320 Coupe, CLK320 Cabriolet,CLK500 Coupe, CLK500 Cabriolet, CLK55 AMG Coupe, CLK55 AMG Cabriolet, CLS500 Coupe, CLS55 AMG, CL500 Coupe, CL55, AMG CL600, Coupe, CL65 AMG, SLK 350 Roadster, SLK55 AMG Roadster, SL500 Roadster, SL55 AMG, SL600 Roadster, SL65 AMG, ML350 SUV, ML350 SUV Special Edition, ML500 SUV, ML500 SUV Special Edition, G500 SUV, G55 AMG, and SLR McLaren 4MATIC.
The vehicles are priced between $25,850 and $452,750, and the names do nothing towards differentiating one from the other; so bye-bye “envy” sales factor. Why pay a hundred and fifty big ones for a car that everyone thinks cost thirty? That’s no fun.
Cadillac, in its quest to muscle Mercedes aside has jumped into the fray with the vehicle “names” ESV, EXT, ETS, SRX and XLR, basking in the image mingling.
The only people crazy enough to learn and love the distinctions between the Mercedes C-Class, E-Class, S-Class, CLK-Class, CL-Class, SLK-Class, SL-Class, M-Class, G-Class, AMG, SLR, CDI and ML spend the remainder of their time playing “Prince of Persia, Warrior Within” on the Xbox and aren’t likely to purchase a car without parental consent.
Here is how some of the hairs are split:
C-Class Overview
The Mercedes-Benz C-Class offers more value and choice than ever before with the most models and body styles to choose from, and MSRPs starting under $30,000.E-Class Overview
Offering European sophistication and performance, the exhilarating Mercedes-Benz E-Class combines the best of sedan luxury with the comfort of a wagon.S-Class Overview
The premier luxury sedan in the world, the S-Class is the unparalleled expression of elegance, technological innovation, charismatic styling and pure driving pleasure.CLK-Class Overview
Available in both luxury convertible and pillarless coupe models, the CLK-Class is one of the world’s most desirable and exhilarating forms of pure driving pleasure.CLS-Class Overview
The CLS-Class redefines what a coupe can be. It offers expressive style, poised performance, a 4-seat cabin, but with four doors.CL-Class Overview
The CL-Class is not just a distinctive and exclusive leader in the luxury coupe market. With its intense performance and refined style, it demands to be driven.SLK-Class Overview
From its muscular stance inspired by Formula One racing to its athletic performance, the SLK-Class roadster delivers aggressive sports car styling and an exhilarating driving experienceSL-Class Overview
The Mercedes-Benz SL-Class is the latest incarnation of an unmatched automotive legacy, combining unrivaled technological excellence, passionate performance and timeless elegance into flawless perfection.M-Class Overview
The M-Class is an ever-ready companion whose exemplary design, comprehensive safety features and unmatched versatility make it perfect for active and adventurous lifestyles.
On the edge of your seat for the Mercedes definitions behind G-Class, AMG, SLR, CDI and ML? Of course not — it’s too much work and there’s no reward — two things luxury should never be.
Historical Internet names
Abra Cadabra: Naming a company is not like pulling a rabbit out of a hat — but there is a kind of magic to it.
Looking back, we’re taking a magical mystery tour of Internet company names, thanks to Google’s 20 year Usenet Timeline. It’s DejaNews all over again.
Our trip though the jungle of Internet Company names begins with a Usenet message from some guy named Jeff Bezos, who was hiring for an unknown startup back in the summer of 1994. Nobody knew then that, only five years later, he’d be Time Magazine’s Person of the Year. He was just some clever kid fresh out of school (okay, Princeton) with an idea he could make history on the internet with a company he called Cadabra Inc.
“What do you call your company?” the VC lawyer asked.
“Cadabra, like abracadabra, only shorter,” said the young man.
“Sounds like cadaver,” said the lawyer, who’d seen a lot of startups die, for want of a better word, “You’d better change the name.”
Amazon…dot com, yeah, that’s it. He could be, like, King of Amazon. With some magic omen, the signature on his Usenet message a few weeks earlier had been a quotation of Xerox PARC’s Alan Kay, “It’s easier to invent the future than to predict it.”
The rest is history. I mean, what became of that Cadabra name? Two other geeky students had created their own online search tool. Soon, they were in Silicon Valley Business Journal.
While students at Stanford University, Narinder Singh and Don Geddis set up an online service that allowed users to search for rental housing by inputting criteria such as the number of bedrooms, location and price range. The site, search.tesserae.com, includes classified advertisements culled from newspapers throughout the Bay Area. It was the first search engine of its kind and is still available for use.
In 1997, after graduating from Stanford, Messrs. Singh and Geddis developed similar technology that enabled users to search online for real estate. They decided to license the technology and named their company Tesserae after the square tiles Romans used to make mosaics because the firm was the first to “glue together applications” to enable people to search different databases, from different Internet sites, simultaneously….
By 1999, they had convinced everyone that needed convincing: Tesserae would reinvent itself as an online search engine and would no longer license its technology to other companies. The company changed its name to the catchier Cadabra and changed its product from housing to another hot item in the valley: computer and electronic equipment.
“The name is like Yahoo or Excite,” Mr. Singh said. “You’ve got to have an easy to understand brand.”
Like, Yahoo! It wasn’t long before Cadabra got bought by GoTo.com, an IdeaLab company that made a name for itself when it sued Go.com into a lucrative infringement settlement that virtually shut down the Disney portal. Go figger.
And then all of a sudden it was so not cool for a big company that needed money to be a dotcom, and it became necessary for GoTo.com to come up with a new name for itself. Overture, the name was “conceived internally” according to the press release pdf announcing the new name.
Overture was chosen based on its ability to communicate the company’s compelling advertiser and affiliate partner benefits. One definition of “overture” is an introduction, making the name a metaphor for the targeted introductions the company facilitates….
To make a long story short, Overture acquired some more big names in search like Fast, and the progenitor of search engines, AltaVista, in some cases for less than their domain names once sold for. And then, Overture itself was acquired. Yahoo!
By the way, cadabra.com is for sale for $5,000 now, if anyone wants a name with a story. Bezos? Jeff Bezos? Anyone?
Originally posted by Abnu on our sister-site, Wordlab.
Insider insults from Silicon Valley Slang
Of Academic Placenta and Triorites: If you haven’t checked out the Silicon Valley Slang website, you’re missing a big opportunity. And don’t be dissuaded by the site’s opening joke: “Under Development - please try again in a few days!” It’s fully functional and full of insider insults that you can hurl at the fascist pin-benders that run your own IT department. Or at least you’ll be able to understand the coded insults that they are muttering at you.
Either way it’s a nice break from the hell that is your job.
Brand Evolution is now Tipping Sprung
Corporate Darwinism: Our esteemed competitors at Brand Evolution have changed their name. We are, for once, speechless. Please help us decipher this one. Check it out.
Posted by Jay on
January 5th, 2005 - 4:33pm |
company names + industry insider + what the...? |
Comments (3) Brandies brand name awards
Dim Sum: i-Newswire.com brings us an interesting press release:
The Brand Name Awards for 2004, known affectionately as The Brandies, invites all interested parties to nominate names for a Name Award for 2004 by visiting www.BrandNameAwards.com. Anyone can enter a name online, and have a chance to win their own copy of the award trophy — a beautiful brandy snifter glass engraved with a branding iron. For this inaugural event, names will be judged in the categories of Best New Business Name, Best New Product Name, Best Name Change and Best Sole Proprietorship. Only names that came to prominence in 2004 are eligible for submission. The winning names will be selected by an eminent panel of judges representing naming agencies, branding agencies, marketing professionals, academia, promo companies, sponsors and all the related media sources. Separate awards will be given in each category for different industries so that a name in business, say, does not have to compete against a consumer name in pharmaceuticals or some other unrelated arena.
…The Brand Name Awards are organized and sponsored by Brighter Naming, home of the Name Critic. They are Silicon Valley’s full service independent naming agency, providing names for all sizes of companies, products, services and other agencies worldwide.
The irony of Brighter Naming producing and judging naming awards is of course manifest in the names that occupy their own portfolio, which include such delicacies as:
Metalum, Diagenes,Swanora, Imbala, Zonare,Netrova,Concuity,Epizon,Vothe, Ultrada,Synetics, Cataligent, Empriva, Immersant, Intira, Acterra, and Telispire.
A complete listing of Brighter Naming transgressions can be viewed here. Nominate your favorite today!
New names for the new year
Norak Biosciences lays claim to the first name change born in the new year, changing their name to Xsira Pharmaceuticals. What does Xsira mean? They don’t say in their press release. It’s possible that the X is meant to connote “extreme”, as in the naming strategy behind X-games or Xbox. “Sira” is a tome on the life of the Prophet Mohammed by the father of Arabian history, Ibn Izaak, penned back in the 9th century.
Another name change with religious overtones of a different faith is a bizarre double play. Baseball’s Anaheim Angels have renamed themselves “The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim,” which when translated from Spanish means “The The Angels Angels of Anaheim.” Only in La La Land.
