category: pop culture

Igor East open for business!

Igor East’s Managing Director John Clutterbuck (left) poses with our new Massachusetts crew on May 5, opening day:

Remember, “It’s Igor East for all of your naming and sintered metal needs.”

Igor is big in Croatia

Apparently, there is a country called “Croatia”. Why they exist is a mystery. But we are big there.

From “The Land of The Grudge” (with pics of some Igor staffers):

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.

Complete article

This Bud’s Not For You

This just in from the Associated Press: California brewer ordered to stop using ‘Legal Weed’ bottle caps.

WEED, Calif. — Vaune Dillmann thought the wording on his bottle caps was just a clever play on the name of the northern California town where he brews his beer.

Federal alcohol regulators thought differently. They have ordered Dillmann to stop selling beer bottles with caps that say “Try Legal Weed.” The agency, which regulates the brewing industry, said the wording could “mislead consumers about the characteristics of the alcoholic beverage.”

Dillmann scoffs at the notion that his label has anything to do with smoking pot. “I’ve never tried marijuana in my life,” he told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “I don’t advocate that. It’s just our town’s name.”

Igor’s latest naming work is a Gogo

Via today’s New York Times:

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 | More blogs about Aircell ] [ More posts about | More blogs about Gogo ]

The Politics of Naming and Branding

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.

YesPecanIceCreamWhile 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.

Bill Hicks on advertising and marketing

The late great Mr. Hicks has something to say about the profession that we here at Igor ply as our trade on a daily basis.

As was his way, Bill is right on the money. In this clip he serves as the anti-Seth, which is always a good thing. Enjoy.

Leap Year Naming and Branding

Happy Leap Day, Anthony.

Every four years, we take a look at leap names.

Leap Frog = good name
Leapster = bad name

I Love Blow

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”.

Crossing a Purple Cow with a Belgian Blue Bull

Q. What do you get when you cross a Purple Cow with a Belgian Blue?

A. More bull? ;-)

Valentine’s Day Link Love

AssKisserGum
We’re not just kissing ass when we say we “heart” Blue Q product names.

Dirty Girl
Miso Pretty
Cute As Hell
Mental Case
La-La Land
Boss Lady
Get Real
Looking Good For Jesus
Wash Away Your Sins
Cat Butt
Balls
Mullet
Queen
Gnome
Hot & Flashy
Total Bitch
Virgin/Slut

And here’s some Valentine’s Day link love for our girls, Hot for Words and Eat My Words.

Eat out more often

Perhaps man can live on bread alone. Or maybe McDonalds is just trying to redefine “meat market”.

Here is a snap of their latest in-store McMuffin campaign. We are into just about anything here at Igor, or so we thought.

This one is just a bit too kinky for even us — it’s strictly “Little Debbie” territory.

naming companies

Super Bowl Ads on YouTube

Super Bowl Ads

YouTube has dedicated a channel, the Super Bowl Adblitz, where you can watch and vote for all your favorite Super Bowl commercials.

My favorite? Thrillicious: 2008 Sobe Life Water Super Bowl Ad What’s yours?

« Home | pop culture