One of TIME’s 50 best inventions of 2008: the branded candidate.
Barack Obama hat: $15.
Barack Obama special-edition Beyoncé T shirt: $60.
Devising a system to make and sell your own swag aand garner millions in profits, not to mention the phone numbers and addresses of hundreds of thousands of potential volunteers? Priceless.
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart has a hilarious analysis of Obama’s half-hour infomercial — complete with “unfortunate product placements.”
Today, Microsoft introduced what it said would be a slimmer and more responsive version of its Windows operating system, while unceremoniously dropping the brand name Vista for the new product. The new version will instead be branded Windows 7, because it is the seventh of a long line of operating systems for PCs developed by the company since the 1980s.
Via: New York Times
It will be interesting to see how Apple revamps its popular “I’m a Mac” advertisements mocking the Vista operating system.
Yesterday, Microsoft launched a new series of ads — a new “I’m a PC” campaign — “part of Crispin Porter & Bogusky’s $300 million marketing ploy to help the computer maker regain some positive buzz lost to competitor Apple,” according to Advertising Age. Computer users can upload to windows.com their own “I’m a PC” ad.
In the frequently asked questions section of the site, it says: “I have a Mac, can I participate?” Microsoft’s answer: “Of course you can. A Mac can be a PC too, most notably when it runs Windows Vista.”
Oh noes, there’s that V-word again.
Posted by John on
October 28th, 2008 - 11:41pm |
branding + name changes + naming process + pop culture + product names |
Comments (0) Section 2(a) of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. 1052(a), bars the registration of trademarks that are deemed “immoral” or “scandalous.”
“For the past few years, the USPTO has been on a Section 2(a) rampage, and this decision is the latest step in the PTO’s quest to become the commercial morality police,” says law professor Marc Randazza.
Posted by John on
October 26th, 2008 - 12:43am |
advertising + product names + trademark issues + what the...? |
Comments (1) 
After Michelle Obama saw Igor and his shirt she requested a picture with him. While it might not be a handshake with the Democratic Nominee, Igor said meeting Michelle was “awesome.”
Hat Tip: Amanda Scott Lawyers in Maine
Announcing Pinota, the first adult entertainment network built exclusively for bold BlackBerry users. According to the beta website.
Pinota is the first and only adult entertainment network dedicated exclusively to BlackBerry users. We choose the name Pinota as a nod to classic pin-up girls of the past and now ‘Over-The-Air’. Our members will find adult videos, photo galleries and introducing our founders Missy and Maggie’s sex blogs.
We expect the Finnish girls to be stacked.
Research in Motion, headquartered in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, aims to take the worldwide smartphone market by storm, but choosing the name behind this newest BlackBerry didn’t turn out as smoothly as RIM had hoped. Here’s the story behind the naming of the BlackBerry Storm from an interview with David Smith, senior director of handheld product management at RIM and one of the leaders of the BlackBerry Storm team.
“When we created the product, we created internal codenames for the products. The codename that we chose for this product was the Storm. That was our internal, secret codename between Vodafone, Verizon and ourselves that we used when we had joint meetings between the three parties to work on the Storm,” Mr. Smith told the Financial Post in a recent interview at the company’s headquarters in Waterloo, Ontario.
“A couple months into the program we got to the point where we said we had to get our marketing team working on the name. They went off and do what they do in terms of coming up with the right name for the product. They came back and said ‘We want to call it the BlackBerry Storm.’ They just loved the Storm metaphor and what it would be – ‘There’s a Storm coming’ and so on.”
It turns out the marketers decision (or lack of imagination, depending on how you look at it) created a dillema for RIM. The company has a policy where they do not name the products whatever codename is assigned to it during development and production to protect against leaks. So, a new codename was created, Mr. Smith said.
“We don’t want to because it if there is a leak or something gets out on a blog or something, we don’t want it to be the name of the product. What we did is to come up with a new name, the Thunder. Thunder was our new internal codename,” he said.
There’s a lot of buzz in the blogosphere about the Storm coming to the US market with Verizon and in Canada with Telus. That on top of all the buzz on blogs about the new Bold.
Canadians in Igor’s office in Toronto (less than an hour from RIM’s headquarters) have had their hands on the new BlackBerry Bold on Rogers for a couple of months already, and are just loving it. Americans will be able to pick up theirs at AT&T on November 4th.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video must be worth a million… or something like that. Anyways, I’m pretty sure this is one of the first videos out there that compares the BlackBerry Storm to the BlackBerry Bold to the Apple iPhone 3G. Take a look! And remember where you saw it first!!
Posted by John on
October 23rd, 2008 - 11:34am |
Igor + naming process + product names |
Comments (0) We are all affected by the names that companies put out into the world for themselves or their products. Occasionally such names are inspiried brilliance, compact poetry in a word or phrase, but the bulk range from the banal to the downright irritating.
“For, although common Snarks do no manner of harm,
Yet, I feel it my duty to say,
Some are Boojums — ” The Bellman broke off in alarm,
For the Baker had fainted away.This site is dedicated to tracking what’s going on in the naming and branding world, digging deeper to figure out what names or naming trends mean for the culture as a whole, and starting a conversation about a subject and a process that many people still find mystifying.
That’s from the very first post here on Snark Hunting. Happy blogiversary to Steve and Jay and everyone at Igor, who have been blogging about naming and branding here at Snark Hunting for six years.
The “Homeland Security Blanket” is the title of this work by Keene Valley artist Jerilea Zempel. After Zempel was detained by U.S. border guards for having a sketch of the project she decided to give it a new name.
According to Fox News, an organic wine from Chile has oenophiles (their word) in San Francisco turning up their noses. But there’s nothing wrong with the wine. It’s the name that bothers them: Palin Syrah.
To be fair and balanced, shop owner Scott Pactor said he’s looking to give Democratic Party supporters an option, too.
“We’re also in the process of looking for an Obama wine or a Biden wine, just to be balanced, obviously, just to be balanced. We want to make sure customers have options, but so far we haven’t been successful,” he said.
How ’bout That One for a wine label?
The Nike Air Max LTD 2 comes in Premium smooth brown leather, the same leather like Lederhosen leather. Featuring a very fresh light blue sole unit. All over brown using the material finishes to give the shoe depth. Using Baroque Brown and gold stitches for the “Pretzel” Logo. And the Light Blue as a vibrant pop color. The branding is a simple “Pretzel” on the Sockliner (allover Bavarian flag). Limited to 3000 Pairs worldwide and only available in Germany, Austria and Switzerland! Better be quick now to get your pair.
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Igor - a San Francisco-based naming & branding agency
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