In our continuing series of Obfuscating and Circuitous Process Diagrams, we give you the U.S Department of Defense’s own “Verification, Validation, and Authentication problem solving process”. If this doesn’t scare you, nothing will (click to enlarge):
Posted by Steve on
February 21st, 2007 - 5:15pm |
advertising + branding + pop culture |
Comments (0) Quiznos now has around one-fifth the number of stores Subway has, but is the number one sandwich store in terms of growth while Subway continues to tread water. It’s time for Subway to get bold and reinvent, or die.
Perhaps they could run with this campaign:
Posted by Steve on
February 13th, 2007 - 9:51am |
Igor + advertising + branding + logo/identity |
Comments (0) From All Headline News:
Playboy, like many other magazines throughout the nation, has not done so well on Wall Street with shares falling about 18 percent in 2006. Wall Street is not forecasting much improvement for 2007.
Wall Street may not be impressed, but those outperforming contrarians at Rochester, NY-based money management firm Manning and Napier (cheap plug for my dad’s firm) are sticking with what they know, the Playboy brand:
Virge Trotter, an analyst with Manning and Napier Advisors, said, “People have questioned the long-term ability of Playboy to survive but we think it will survive. We like the plans they have in cable and licensing and the valuation is cheap enough that not a lot has to work for the stock to rebound.”
All it will take is a few million snowbound Upstate New Yorkers…
Posted by Steve on
February 13th, 2007 - 8:51am |
advertising + branding + pop culture |
Comments (0) 
Igor and Eat My Words are hosting an extravagant affair for those in the naming business. It’s happening on February 13, and the confirmed guest list includes sentient beings from Catchword, Salt, Landor, Interbrand, Metaphor. Lexicon, Idiom, Imagineering, Stoked Brands, etc.
So if you work at a naming firm or you are a domesticated farm animal, or both, send us an email and we’ll try and get you on the list.
THE MENU
THE NAMERS
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Posted by Steve on
February 8th, 2007 - 12:58pm |
Igor + advertising + branding + company names + industry insider + name changes + naming process + pop culture + powerful names + product names + taglines |
Comments (1) Abuelita is a well known, longstanding brand of hot chocolate in Mexico, despite the picture of the woman (?) on the label who looks likes she is trying to trick you into drinking poison.
Posted by Steve on
February 6th, 2007 - 4:57pm |
advertising + branding + naming process + powerful names + product names |
Comments (2) Lone Landor naphephiliac Anthony Shore gets snarky on a name, and deservedly so. From the San Francisco Chronicle:
A camel named Jake wore a bush hat with the company logo. Five elephants formed a reception committee. A sea lion called Odie reclined in a golf cart. The scene in Vallejo on Wednesday morning looked like a cross between Noah’s Ark and “Jurassic Park.”
It wasn’t. Instead, the occasion was a rebranding ritual: Marine World is now Discovery Kingdom…
…”It sounds like the bastard offspring of the Discovery Channel and the Magic Kingdom,” said Anthony Shore, creative director of naming and writing at Landor Associates, a strategic branding and design consultancy in San Francisco.
“Discovery is a word that’s used a lot in the world of entertainment and theme parks, and kingdom is also hardly unique in the category,” Shore said. “They now have their work cut out for them — to help create more distinction from all of those other discovery brands.”
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Says Blandor the Imponderable: “My Willy hasn’t been this free in decades! Alas, I feel the pounding hooves of our PR Emergency Response Team in the corridor. Twas a brief dalliance… “ |
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Posted by Steve on
January 19th, 2007 - 1:24pm |
Igor + advertising + branding + language + name changes + naming process + product names |
Comments (2) 
Thanks to Tom Whitwell of The Times of London, who waved this one under our noses first thing in the morning. Tom e-mails:
If you’re going to have a brand name like Eat Fussy, you have to be very careful which fonts you use.
Lower case was probably a good call…
We’re sold. And after you meet Annabel Karmel, you will be too.
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Posted by Steve on
January 18th, 2007 - 10:47am |
advertising + branding + company names + language + pop culture + powerful names |
Comments (3) Perhaps it’s part of a brand makeover and a recruiting drive, but now I’m really confused. You’d think “mortification of the flesh” would be a tempting tagline.
The TSA is selling advertising space on its screening equipment at airports.
Posted by Steve on
January 11th, 2007 - 12:28pm |
advertising + branding + pop culture |
Comments (0) 
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Posted by Steve on
January 8th, 2007 - 12:49pm |
branding + language + luxury brands + naming process + pop culture |
Comments (1) Searching for bleeding edge naming news, we turn to that eternal source of befuddlement, the Landor naming portfolio. Landor proudly lays claim to a total of 18 naming jobs on their website, 16 of which date from 2001 or earlier. The remaining 2 are proving difficult to date:
Fillboard (TM filed 1998)
Astrium (not a gay bar - 2000)
Tality (again, not a gay bar - 2000)
Chancellor Academy (date unknown. only web reference to this name change resides here)
Certegy (2001)
Clarica (1999)
Exostar (2000)
EverCare (1999)
Advantix (TM filed 1995)
Durex (yes, the penis people – 1998)
Midea Group (“Formal registration and application of the brand” - 1981 )
ProNational Insurance (1998)
Spherion (2000)
Techint/Tenaris (2001)
Pactiv (1999)
Flipside (circa 2000, dead dotcom)
Uniqa (1999)
Wildlife Conservation Society - We can’t pin a date on this donkey, but they had been calling themselves “WCS”, an acronym for Wildlife Conservation Society. Landor stepped in and “Landor urged the Wildlife Conservation Society to boldly and consistently embrace its full name, and forego the acronym.”
We’re not ready to officially classify advising the Wildlife Conservation Society to call themselves Wildlife Conservation Society as a naming job, but without it Landor is left with Chancelor Academy as the only possible naming job since ’01 in their portfolio, so we’ll let it slither in.
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Says Blandor the Imponderable: “Fools! Naming is about quality, not quanity! I’ll stack my portfolio up against any random name generator software anytime! As for not being currant, it’s cranberry juice I need, and in copious quantities. Your ignorance has inflamed my condition” |
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Posted by Steve on
January 4th, 2007 - 1:55pm |
branding + company names + name changes + naming process + product names |
Comments (4) The following holiday post is branding and naming free. Every few years you get lucky.
As a former Upstate New Yorker and recovering Buffalo Bills fan, I still get an atavistic chill the moment the “snowball in hell” playoff scenarios are laid bare, signaling the arrival of the holidays.
Bills fans have a lot to think about right now, but anyone who can keep these thoughts in their heads is probably not a real Bills fan, scientifically speaking. It’s a bit of a Zen koan (don’t bother to look that up Bills fans, it just leads to more questions) in that passing the test eliminates you from real fandom. I’m especially filled with the spirit this year by columnist Chris Brown’s irony-free opening statement:
“By now virtually everyone knows what the Bills need this week concerning help for the playoffs.”
He then proceeds with the list of convolutions as if it were common knowledge (I’m convinced that it is) in Buffalo. From the Bill’s website:
I was under the assumption that if Denver and the Jets win this weekend that the Bills would be eliminated from playoff contention even if Buffalo beats Tennessee. However, that’s not necessarily true.
By now virtually everyone knows what the Bills need this week concerning help for the playoffs.
Bills beat Tennessee
Denver beats Cincinnati
Miami beats Jets
New England beats Jacksonville
Under this scenario the Bills would control their own destiny and basically concede one of the Wild Card spots to Denver who beat the Bills in a 9-7 tiebreaker.
Now if the worst happens and the Jets win this weekend along with Denver, Buffalo, with a win, still would not be out of the playoff race provided Kansas City wins.
If Kansas City wins Saturday night over Oakland (likely) they would keep the Bills alive even if Denver and the Jets win. The reason why is Kansas City would hold the tiebreaker edge on Denver (division record) should there be a three-way tie with Buffalo, Kansas City and Denver at the end of the season.
In that case the tie between the AFC West teams would be done first. Kansas City would eliminate Denver, leaving Buffalo and KC. Buffalo beats KC on conference record tiebreaker and could get the 6th and final playoff spot.
However, if there is a four way tie at 9-7 with KC, Denver, Bills and Jets, and the Jets 9th win came against Miami, the Bills would be out. Because again matching the division teams against one another first the Jets would eliminate Buffalo due to a better division record (4-2 to 3-3).
So if Denver and the Jets win this weekend along with the Bills, you’ve got to hope that Kansas City won on Saturday night.
Then the final week the best thing to hope for is for the Jets to win (vs. Oakland) and finish 10-6 and take the fifth playoff spot. Then have Denver lose (to SF) and KC win (over Jax) and with a Bills win they could take that last playoff spot on three-way tiebreaker.
If Kansas City loses Saturday night and the Jets and Denver win this weekend, Buffalo will be eliminated from playoff contention no matter what.
IT MIGHT BE BETTER IF BALTIMORE LOSES SUNDAY: A loss by Baltimore to Pittsburgh might ultimately better for the Bills too. If Baltimore loses Sunday and Indianapolis beats Houston (likely) and San Diego wins at Seattle (possible) then Baltimore has nothing to play for. They will be locked in as the third or fourth seed and will have to play one of the Wild Card teams.
I understand Baltimore could get a first round bye with a win and an Indy loss to Houston this weekend, but that seems more unlikely. No matter what Baltimore does, it’s not a huge deal, like that Miami-Jets game is Monday night.
And if you’re worried about Pittsburgh finishing 9-7 don’t be. The Steelers conference record at best can be 6-6 if they win out. Buffalo would beat them with a 7-5 conference record.
Though Upstaters are well practiced in the outlined logic stream, the ability to grasp it generally coincides with a spiritual readiness to leave the area. From everyone at Igor in San Francisco, have a good holiday.
© 2008
Igor - a San Francisco-based naming & branding agency
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