We’ve just overhauled the Portfolio section of the Igor website, improving the navigation and adding eight (!) case studies of recent naming projects: Aria, Boogie Board, Improv, Pulsar, Affinity, Firefly, Anthem, and Palo Alto University.

For those of us who toil in a nerdly field, the presence of a maverick who stomps on the terra, chokes every bead of bile from life’s clogged ducts, and then vaporizes in a defiant, atavistic lunge, elevates us all. In the Name Game, that man was John Smart of Interbrand.

This month marks the eleventh anniversary of Agent Smart’s death, and consequently the ninth anniversary of when “schwing” stopped being associated with namers. He was our Austin Powers, our Keith Richards, our Richard Branson. Most of the official record seems to have disappeared from the Web. We found only a brief account of his death:

John Smart, unarmed, shot to death on Oct. 6, 1998 when police fired at least 13 rounds into his Mercedes convertible.

That was a late model Mercedes convertible. According to published reports at the time, he was stopped in San Francisco (our fair city) for suspicion of either soliciting a prostitute or drugs or both. Police said that Smart tried to run them down, at which point his legend was eternalized. For a full, rollicking year afterwards, namers of every ilk had to add extra memory to their Palm Pilots just to handle the overflow from their social calendars.

But that equity has faded, and it’s time for another high-ranking naming superstar from a big San Francisco shop to go out in a blaze of glory. We’d happily volunteer, if we thought Igor would rate better than a small mention on page eight of the San Francisco Chronicle. No, it must be someone from a page one agency, an agency like Landor. Any takers? Mr. Wrench?

I personally blame this cover art for a youthful indiscretion of mine at a Boy Scout Jamboree in the ’70s, but that’s a post for a different day. What say we send this to the real tea baggers, give them something to rant about?

Brokeback Mountain Prequel

One of the funniest aspects of alleged naming & branding firm Landor, is the ridiculous rationale they cite for the work they produce. Oftentimes they will, with capricious authority, justify a design based on what certain colors “mean” or “communicate”. These “reasons” become all the more comical when parroted by the officers of their most recent victim.

Landor’s latest for a financial company is a re-worked logo. Fiserve’s Chief Executive Jeffery Yabuki, performs the squawk of shame for the Journal Sentinel:

The new logo, which is the word fiserv. – with a period – is orange because it’s different from the common industry logo color of blue and “has a certain heat and energy to it, but not the kind of danger you perceive when you see red,” Yabuki said.

No red menace here.

Red bad. Red is color of Danger. Danger bad for financial company image.

Unless of course you can sell it to another financial client. From the bowels of the Landor site:

Landor created an identity and retail space for HSBC Direct. The use of white communicates the simplicity of the brand, while red projects a contemporary attitude.

Don't be alarmed, it's just HSBC Direct's Landorian luminosity.

Full Case study

Landor founder, Walter Landor gazing inappropriately at his half-son, Blandor.

Says Blandor the Imponderable: “I fondly recall Poppy and I attending the semi-annual wisdom tooth convention. As we sat on our haunches, grooming each other and eating our sack lunch of turkey biscotti and marshmallow toast, we would randomly jump up and shout, “Wottle up the bull throttle!”. We would then travel the 3 hours home, in complete silence, until our arrival at Mandible Station.”

More on the misspent journey of Blandor’s life.

This product is no joke. GoGirl is selling 40k units a week, those units being funnels. Apparently, women have wanted to pee standing up for a while, something of a “pent up demand”. The idea being you don’t have to sit on nasty public toilet seats just to pee. It also makes getting drunk and pissing in an alley less problematic. Their tag line is also pitch perfect, “Don’t take life sitting down”.

Are your company or product name brainstorming attempts long on storm and short on brains? Igor has over 15,300 brains in stock, ready to help you name whatever needs naming — most have very low mileage, are hardly ever driven during the week, and are used only sparingly on weekends to scan refrigerator contents and such. Our collection of brains can be picked through at the Wordlab Wordboard, our free naming and branding brainstorming forum. Jump in and pick the brains!

Tips for picking a brain:

1. Do not pick if the skin is too green–it’s not ripe yet.

2. The brain should be viscous and phlegmatic, yet hold up to a good thumping. Not too firm, not too soft.

3. The end that was twisted from the brain stem should be pliable when you poke your thumb through the outer membrane. If you can’t break the membrane with your fingernail, the brain was picked prematurely.

4. Smell is the most reliable indicator of freshness.

5. Have fun with it, but keep it platonic.

The viable bit of warm and snuggly insurance company AIG has been spun-off and dubbed “Chartis”. A bad name? Well, yes. But that is just what they needed. Sometimes a terrible name is the perfect name. In today’s Insurance Journal, a so-called naming expert spouts off:

According to AIG, Chartis derives from the Greek word for map, which the company said underscores the company’s 90-year history as a global insurance pioneer.

While AIG is apparently not alone in liking the name, is Chartis a name to remember?

Perhaps not, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

One naming expert says the new corporate moniker is neither memorable nor snappy — and in that regard the name Chartis is perfect for what AIG wants to do, which is to distance itself from its old company and not draw a lot of attention to itself while doing so.

“It’s the kind of name that’s in one ear and out the other,” said Steven Manning, managing director for Igor, a well-known international naming and branding agency based in San Francisco. “It blends into the woodwork, which is just what the assignment was.”

Even the logo, a compass, is predictable, Manning noted.

Manning likened the move to Enron’s adopting Prisma Energy and Phillip Morris choosing Altria.

“It’s about breaking the association with AIG, like going into witness protection,” he said.

Chartis Insurance is using www.chartisinsurance.com for its Web site. Chartis Group uses chartis.com and chartisgroup.com.

Chartis Insurance, headquartered in New York, of course, has quite a head start on other companies picking a name. It includes the profitable AIG/AIU Commercial Insurance, Foreign General Insurance and Private Client Group operations. It had a combined statutory surplus of $32.1 billion worldwide at year-end 2008 and more than 40 million clients around the globe.

AIG/AIU hopes that the financially strong Chartis will be recognized for its success apart from the AIG name, which has been tainted by actions out of its London financial products unit that eventually resulted in a U.S. federal government bailout. The P/C units now being branded as Chartis did not get into trouble and did not require bailout funds.

As we gleefully pranced and flounced about, celebrating the 250 thousandth download of the Igor Naming Guide; we got a complaint. At 115 pages, the ultimate free, how-to resource for naming companies and products, had gotten too long.

Having nothing better to do, we responded. The naming guide is now available in two different lengths: soul-crushing (115 pages) and moderately-irritating (26 pages).

Either version of the naming guide can be downloaded here.

Download the app today at ComputerTan.com

Igor named the new in-flight wifi service gogo (case study here). Below, Richard Branson officially launches gogo service aboard Virgin America.

Wharton at UPenn and USC Annenberg School for Communication both chime in on The Igor Naming Guide.

Via Marketing Charts:

The analysis points to the most serious peril for the following 12 brands which, 24/7 Wall Street says are most likely to disappear by the end of 2010:

1. Budget rental cars: Though Budget’s parent company currently says it will continue to operate both the Avis and Budget brands, increasing debt problems, a weakening travel industry and intensifying competition will nonetheless cause the demise of the Budget brand, 24/7 Wall Street predicts.

2. Borders books: Declining sales, heavy losses and pressure from competitors Barnes & Noble and Amazon – especially from new e-book readers – may prove too much for the brand when large amounts of debt come due in April 2010.

3. Crocs footwear: The decline in stock price from $72 per share in late 2007 to $2 today, ongoing financing issues, consumer belt-tightening and the end of a fad, leads to to 24/7 Wall Street’s declaration that “Crocs won’t make it through the year.”

4. Saturn vehicles: As General Motors faces bankruptcy, 24/7 Wall Street said it will almost certainly shutter the brand, whose sales dropped 59% in the first quarter of 2009.

5. Esquire Magazine : While the Esquire brand is plagued with ad revenue declines and intense competition in the crowded men’s-magazine market, parent company Hearst faces problems on both the newspaper and magazine fronts and will not hesitate to close down underperforming brands such as this one to bolster its overall position.

6. Old Navy apparel: 24/7 Wall Street said that parent company Gap – which currently markets the Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic brands – is “a three-brand company living in a two-brand body” and cannot continue to sustain all three in the midst of steep, across-the-board sales declines. Old Navy, which is the weakest brand, will most likely not survive.

7. Architectural Digest Magazine: Amidst drastic cutbacks in high-end home sales and expensive redecorating, the once-healthy publication has lost 47% of its ad pages this year. Faced with other financial problems in its newspaper and magazine businesses, parent company Conde Nast will not be able to sustain the brand, according to 24/7 Wall Street.

8. Chrysler brand cars: Facing similar problems to GM as it teeters on the edge of bankruptcy, Chrylser LLC will not be able to support product design, manufacturing and marketing for a brand with many less sales that Dodge or Jeep as it gears up for restructuring.

9. Eddie Bauer: Faced with declining sales, a stock price under $1, major debt problems and a CCC- rating, analysts say its lack of differentiation in the marketplace could prove the last straw. 24/7 Wall Street said it could be out of business by mid 2009.

10. Palm: A brand that 24/7 Wall Street says has been “at death’s door for some time,” faces life-threatening competition from RIM and Apple, and can only survive in the unlikely event that it can expand the smartphone market by increasing demand for its “Pre.” Dismal financial results and association with Sprint, the already-#3 US wireless carrier, will spell complete disaster.

11. AIG: The once-venerable insurance giant’s highly publicized financial problems, involvement in the financial crisis and subsequent bailout and indebtedness to the federal government, make it the “one large brand in America which almost everyone would like to see disappear,” according to 24/7 Wall Street. Because many of the company’s operating units do not bear the AIG name, they will continue to do business as they distance themselves from the “toxic” AIG parent brand, which eventually will go away.

12. United Air Lines: As the travel industry faces unprecedented overcapacity in light of the recession, two of the large US carriers will soon need to merge to avoid bankruptcy. While it is not clear yet how such a consolidation will shake out, the stocks of UAL, American and US Air have plummeted. 24/7 Wall Street believes that United – the weakest of the carriers, soon faces a “merger,” which will most likely mean the end of the line for the brand.