The trend in naming law schools is similar to naming sports stadiums; whoever puts up the cash gets the name on the building.
Such was the case with the naming of the newest law school in the country, the Donald Bren School of Law at UC Irvine, named after a huge donation. And recently the Drexel University College of Law was renamed the Drexel University Earle Mack School of Law after “guess who” donated a lot of money to the law school.
Obviously, these new names don’t yet have the brand character of, say, Boalt Hall, named after that law school’s benefactor, the widow Boalt, donated the money for the original law school building on the Berkeley campus of the University of California in memory of her late husband, the lawyer and judge, John Henry Boalt.
But wait, in the interests of better naming and branding, the powers that be at Berzerkeley have decided it’s time for a new name, a better name than Boalt Hall, which is “renowned for having what is regarded as the best intellectual property program in the world, and has held the top spot in U.S. News and World Report rankings for 11 years running.”
So what new name did they approve for Boalt Hall?
University of California, Berkeley, School of Law?
UC Berkeley School of Law?
Berkeley Law?
Boalt Hall? All of the above?
Officials at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law spent nearly $25,000 on a branding consultant to help them give the school a new name:
“UC Berkeley School of Law.”
Dean Christopher Edley Jr. said the money was well-spent because people will now understand that that the law school is tied to UC Berkeley.
He said he routinely has to clarify what and where “Boalt” is. When he gave a lecture recently at Howard University, the person introducing him turned to him and said, “I am sorry, but I am confused. Are there two law schools in Berkeley?”
“We are looking for ways to more clearly identify the law school with Berkeley so that outside audiences will have a clearer sense of what we are,” Edley said. “I view this not as a new name but as a way to remedy the confusion about the relationship between Berkeley, Boalt and UC Berkeley.”
The school will still be called Boalt “within the family,” he said.
Jay Jurisich radi u San Franciscu i među najboljim je stručnjacima za brendove. Jutarnjem je otkrio što je danas presudno za poslovni uspjeh te zašto će neke hrvatske tvrtke uvijek ostati samo regionalneSve je u imenu. Za jedan brend ništa nije toliko važno kao ime”, poslovna je filozofija Jaya Jurisicha koji je s tom krilaticom prije šest godina s kolegom Steveom Manningom u San Franciscu osnovao kompaniju Igor koja se bavi vjerojatno najzabavnijim, ali prilično unosnim poslom u svijetu biznisa.
Igor’s Senior (very) Brand Strategist Andy Valvur is pictured below in China. He is on a quest to find a Sifu who will help refine his already well-honed skills in The Immobile Arts. Here he takes a lesson from The Great Wall.
Additionally, Andy is the organizer of The Global Scavenger Hunt, a convoluted tax dodge.
The organizer of The Global Scavenger Hunt, a race around the world that begins in San Francisco on Friday, is tight-lipped about the countries and challenges that await 15 two-person teams raising money for charity during the three-week competition. Valvur, 53, won a similar race in 1989. He works as a branding manager in San Francisco and writes for CNN’s humor blog, Capitol Punishment.
After winning the 1989 race, why did you decide to stay involved? Who is not going to enjoy trips around the world? I also like watching people come back in and say, “Did you see? Did you go there?” when they discover something new. The thrill of discovery that you turned somebody on to something new is really cool.
How is The Global Scavenger Hunt different from “The Amazing Race”? In “The Amazing Race,” you have to get from one country to another and have to scramble to the airport. This doesn’t have that craziness — it’s pretty fast-paced, but the challenges start and end in the same city — then we all travel together to the next location.
What traits make for winners in The Global Scavenger Hunt? You got to be quick on your feet, and you have to be able to look at a town and figure out the local transportation system really quick. It’s a lot of map reading and time management.
Why did you think this race should raise money for charities instead of offering a big monetary prize to winners? Instead of ugly Americans running around the world, you’re traveling and at the same time giving a little bit back. We’ve had such a bad reputation in the world — it’s a tiny measure of repairing some of the damage.
However, that is a nice pic of Anthony Shore on the hompage. And as hard as it is to believe ladies, he is straight and available (Post-ops considered).
Anth’s interests include phlebotomy, Harry Potter and calf massages (we forgot to ask which definition of “calf” he intended).
If in a vulnerable moment you do find yourself in bed with Landor on your next naming project, be safe, use a mental dam.
Should you wake up and realize you’ve been badly screwed by a “full service
agency”, there is always Plan B or Plan B.
The Web’s last unconquered frontier – the airplane – is about to be invaded yet again.
This spring, Aircell, a 16-year-old company that sells air to ground telecommunications equipment to airlines, will launch a broadband wireless service for twitchy airplane passengers who need their Internet fix at 40,000 feet.
Two years ago, Aircell, based in Itasca, Ill., and Louisville, Colo., paid $31 million to the federal government for a batch of air-to-ground spectrum that was originally used for in-flight seat-back phones –- an expensive service that passengers largely ignored.
Aircell has since built 92 EVDO cell sites across the United States and pointed them at the sky, where they will bring 3.1-megabit-per-second Internet access to airplanes traveling thousands of feet above the ground at hundreds of miles per hour. The company’s on-board technology will magnify that signal and split it into separate Wi-Fi streams, offering speeds equivalent to a home D.S.L. connection to any passenger who wants to log on with his or her wireless device.
Aircell will start the service, called GoGo, with American Airlines this spring and then expand it with Virgin America over the summer.
If GoGo gets off the ground, it will fulfill the long-held promise of bringing Internet access to airplane passengers. Boeing tried it, somewhat disastrously, earlier this decade with its Connexion in-flight satellite service. Boeing signed up carriers such as Lufthansa, Japan Airlines and Singapore Airlines but the effort was eventually undone by belt-tightening after 9/11. The aircraft maker had to write off $320 million on what was widely reported to be a $1 billion investment.
Jack Blumenstein, Aircell’s chief executive, said GoGo is different in several ways. Airplanes can be retrofitted with the technology overnight, and the in-flight servers and antennas weigh less than 50 pounds, considerably less than Boeing’s bulky satellite receivers. Broadband wireless technology is now faster overall as well, while the array of Wi-Fi equipped consumer devices — from iPhones to laptops — has blossomed.
GoGo’s pricing plans will vary, but access during a cross-country flight should cost around $13. GoGo will also serve up-on-demand television and films from on-board, TiVo-like servers.
Mr. Blumenstein expects other airlines to come on board quickly. “Passengers want freedom and the ability to get back in control of their life and be productive,” he said. “All the data suggests passengers will change planes if one airline offers it and another doesn’t. The airlines will fight to the death over a 1 percent market share shift,” he said.
Readers, please discuss. This is clearly inevitable. Is anyone bothered that the last environment for unwired thinking and old-media-reading is about to be tethered to the grid? I’m ambivalent. Of course, I’ll also be among the first to log on.
Did we mention Gogo was named by Igor? Right, that’s what is most important here.
[ More posts about Aircell | More blogs about Aircell ] [ More posts about Gogo | More blogs about Gogo ]
The folks over at Slate have been having some fun with readers of their Trailhead campaign blog trying to come up with a name that Ben & Jerry’s might use to celebrate Senator Barack Obama’s win of the Democratic primary in the ice cream company’s home state of Vermont.
While thinking up names like Peanut Butter Barackle, Obamana Split, and Barackadamia Nut can be fun, the would-be-namers soon learned that choosing a name that works in all markets can be more difficult than first thought, after they chose the winner Yes, Pecan!
Trailhead reader Gerrit H. mocked up the brilliant pint of ice cream you see above. Tremendous job all around, especially on the blue, red, and white scheme.
Also, several readers have e-mailed telling us that our East Coast bias is on display by thinking “Yes, Pecan!” rhymes with “Yes, We Can!” Down South, pecans are not pronounced pe-CAN, but puh-CAHN, according to Trailhead devotees (Trailheaders? Trailheadians? Trailheads?). Considering Obama adamantly believes in one America, we think he might be distressed by this development. As a result, we’re looking for an alternate flavor for Ben & Jerry’s stores below the Mason-Dixon. The front-runners are currently “Barackadamia Nut” and “Neopolitician.” Got anything better? Let us know.
Meanwhile, back at the headquarters of the Republican National Committee, naming operatives have been busy registering domain names. According to an article in the New York Times, “Speculators have registered nearly 2,000 domain names related to presidential candidates as of last week. Names related to Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy made up over half of the registrations, followed by Mr. Obama with 635 and Mr. McCain with 269.” See here the list of domain names registered by the R.N.C. or on servers used by the committee.
When you do succeed, you’re gonna need a name for your invention.
And if, being a scientist, you’re not good at inventing names, you might just name your invention after the number of times you tried, like say, WD-40 or Formula 409.
Formula 409 didn’t get it’s name from the area code where it was developed. And it’s not the birth date of the creator’s daughter. Formula 409 got its name from perseverance. From the desire of two young scientists in Detroit to create the ultimate cleaner. A cleaner powerful enough to cut through grease and dirt on contact.
A cleaner like that doesn’t get created on the first try. And in the eyes of these two persistent scientists, it doesn’t get created on the 101st, 201st, 301st or 401st try either. Only when they had created their 409th formula were these two young men satisfied that they had created the ultimate cleaner. Formula 409. Kitchen messes don’t stand a chance.
In 1953, a fledgling company called Rocket Chemical Company and its staff of three set out to create a line of rust-prevention solvents and degreasers for use in the aerospace industry, in a small lab in San Diego, California.
It took them 40 attempts to get the water displacing formula worked out. But they must have been really good, because the original secret formula for WD-40—which stands for Water Displacement perfected on the 40th try—is still in use today.
Xobni, the word “inbox” spelled backwards, has created a new way to look at your email. Xobni takes the effort out of organizing, searching, and navigating your email.
I Love Blow. And I love the job Blow energy drink mix has done with their product naming and branding. But the maker of this new energy drink mix powder you can add to your favorite beverage is coming under pressure to rehab its image. I don’t know whether it’s the name, the powder, or the images of sexy, half-naked young women on their website.
Worried that Blow and similar products are glorifying drug use, the Food and Drug Administration sent a letter to the makers of the energy drink mix last month, threatening legal action if the company does not rehab its image.
Named after the well-known street name for cocaine, Blow comes under scrutiny for being packaged and marketed as an alternative to cocaine, as well as for not complying with federal drug laws.
The letter states that Blow itself is an unapproved drug, “intended to affect the structure or function of the body.”
It also states that the energy drink mix does not have an FDA-approved application that legalizes its sale.
With a logo spelled out in white, grainy powder and its product sold in vials, the similarities between Blow and its illegal namesake are evident.
Last year the brouhaha was over an energy drink called Cocaine.
On May 5th, 2007, Cocaine was pulled from U.S. shelves as a result of the FDA’s decision that Cocaine was “illegally marketing their drink as an alternative to street drugs”. Redux Beverages began working on a new name for the product immediately. At the end of May, 2007, the Redux team decided to change the name to “No Name:” energy drink, with the new can label featuring a large blank space for fans to write their chosen name for the drink, covering the “Cocaine” on the can itself. On June 17th, 2007, the drink was redistributed in the U.S. under the new labelling.
However, Redux Beverages has recently announced that the drink will return to shelves under its original name early 2008. Cocaine’s founder and senior partner, Jamey Kirby, always believed they would get their name back. Said Kirby in June 2007, “Oh, we’ll get our name back. We’ll get it back.”
The drink is now available online at www.drinkcocaine.com or in local beverage stores around the U.S.
The beverage is also available in Europe, where it is still sold as Cocaine Energy Drink rather than Insert Name Here: as it is in the U.S.
Opium perfume? The name’s not so much a problem for the perfume by Yves Saint Laurent as the advertising, which caused outrage for being too sexually suggestive and likely to cause “serious or widespread offence”.
While thinking up names like Peanut Butter Barackle, Obamana Split, and Barackadamia Nut can be fun, the would-be-namers soon learned that choosing a name that works in all markets can be more difficult than first thought, after they chose the winner 