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.

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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.

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As reported in last week’s New York Times, the Sci Fi Channel, a division of NBC Universal, introduced its new name and identity, Syfy, at upfront presentations in New York. The announcement got a lot of attention, and although the New York Times story seemingly gave Landor credit for the work—we can’t take it—because we didn’t do it.

We had hoped the name SyFy was another in a series of mysterious incidents in which Landor seemingly takes pity on a client by doing as little harm as possible (except the financial bit).

For example, Landor was actually payed to perform the following name “changes”:

US Air –> US Airways

Federal Express –> FedEx

SciFi –> SyFy (or so it seemed)

Missing from the mea non-culpa on Landor’s blog is any mention of Landor’s involvement in SyFy’s new unimaginative, lesser tagline, “Imagine Greater”. That has to be the work of the beast.

Yes, the really funny part is that Landor now has a blog; kicking, hissing and spitting their way into the year 2009. Hey, maybe they just heard “that blogs are all the buzz these days”. Information flows slowly through those clogged arteries…

Let’s see how long they can keep it up. Should be gripping stuff.

The “Landor blog deathwatch” has begun.

UPDATE: MARCH 29:. The tale was propelled this weekend by outlets as disparate as The New York Post and The Huffington Post. Instead of just letting this story fade, Landor used its new found blogging power to keep the story alive. All they are accomplishing is driving home the fact that they were paid to rename the channel, but the client didn’t care for any of their ideas.

This sort of tin-eared-ham-handedness is exactly why we figured Landor never had a blog, and why it won’t last. Perhaps they should get a firm with communication skills to supervise their blog.

This year marks the tenth 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? Anthony?

“Insert the proprietary Landor Naming Process Tool into the anal canal and twist until it grabs the membrane. Continue twisting another half turn, then steadily pull the proprietary Landor Naming Process Tool out of the canal. Extract 10 inches of membrane, tie the membrane off and cut.”

As with any process, the only true measure of success is what comes out the other end.

Says Blandor the Imponderable: “Oh deer! Perhaps I should butt out….No! My auricular has been opened, laid bare for all to observe! This time, no amount of blandiloquence will assuage this insolent corporate sabotage! And furthermore, we use a much larger mammal in our current work”

Many tech companies tend to follow two naming strategies these days, says Anthony Shore, global director of naming and writing at Landor Associates, a San Francisco design company: the “nonsense” name (Joost) and names that use familiar-but-misspelled words (Flickr).

Shore, for one, likes neither strategy: “It just feels like they’re throwing in the towel. It’s easy to find an existing word and drop out a letter. It’s easy to come up with arbitrary sounds, or to just add an ‘oo.’ It’s far more difficult to come up with names with real words that have meanings and connections with people.”

Yup, that’s Landor, as in the creators of names like Uniqa and Solutia. I write this post with a heavy heart, as Anthony Shore is a good friend of mine. All right, was a good friend of mine. And okay, I have no heart.

Ben & Jerry’s ice cream – acquired by Unilever in 2000 – was a pioneer of faux-naif design, with its cartoon pictures of cows, clouds and daisies, smile-in-the-mind copy and child-like handwriting. Some see Innocent’s branding as an imitation of Pete & Johnny’s smoothies, which created the UK smoothie market in 1994 and adopted a Ben & Jerry’s, child-like style. Acquired by PepsiCo in 2005, the brand was renamed PJ Smoothies and relaunched with a cold, corporate look by Landor Associates, which failed to strike a chord with consumers.

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Landor Associates, one of the world’s leading strategic branding and design consultancies, today announced the appointment of Anthony Shore to Global Director, Naming & Writing. Shore was previously Creative Director of Naming & Writing at the San Francisco office of Landor.

In 2006, Shore was charged with establishing and leading Landor’s first naming-oriented Global Knowledge Sharing Team to optimize processes and resources worldwide. This resulted in a significant increase in naming assignments and an advancement of Landor’s capabilities in this area.

Charlie Wrench, Chief Executive Officer of Landor, said, “Over the course of Anthony’s career with Landor, he has shown nothing more than absolute passion for his work and an increasing determination to transform Landor’s worldwide naming network into the most accomplished and catalytic group in our industry. I trust that in just a few years time, this goal will be reached and Landor will be recognized as the world’s leading naming network.”

When asked about his goals moving forward, Shore said, “Developing great names for a global audience requires a deep understanding of many local languages and cultures. It also requires exceptional creativity and a strategic brand focus. My vision is to maximize the individual creativity and collective effectiveness of the two dozen brilliant namers Landor Associates has worldwide. With fantastic naming work, we provide a fantastic return for our clients.

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

• Pesto baked brie & imported cheeses with fresh fruit, rustic breads & olives
• Miniature filet mignon with balsamic caramelized onions & Roquefort
• Spicy crab & scallop cakes with a cilantro lime aioli
• Mini phyllo cups filled with spinach sun dried tomatoes feta cheese & olive tapenade
• Smoked salmon wraps w baby spinach sweet onions & goat cheese
• Marinated mushrooms, roasted beets, artichoke hearts, grilled asparagus platter with a roasted garlic saffron aioli
• Ahi tartars on crisp wonton chips with wasabi aioli & tobiko caviar

THE NAMERS

• Abnu, Wordlab
• Alexandra Watkins, Eat My Words
• Alton Wright, Wright Brands
• Amy Sherman
• Andrea Michaels, Acme Naming
• Anthony Shore, Landor
• Aaron Hall, Catchword
• Burt Alper, Catchword
• Carol Miller, Red Pentameter
• Daniel Edelstein
• Eunice Park, Landor
• Dave Hurlbert
• Deborah Schatten, Brandese
• Frank Binney
• Jay Jurisich, Igor
• Jonathan Littman, Simmer Branding Studio
• Lisa Awrey
• Marc Hershon, Simmer Branding Studio
• Maria Cypher,Catchword
• Mark Gunnion
• Marty Neumeier, Neutron LLC
• Nan Budinger, Metaphor
• Nancy Friedman, Wordworking
• Reed Kirk Rahlmann
• Sandra Lee Messer
• Shannon De Jong
• Steve Cecil, Wherewords
• Steve Manning, Igor
• Steve Price, Lexicon
• Susan Manning
• Susan Carp, Imagineering
• Tate Linden, Stoked Brands

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.

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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Though they weren’t invited to “Get In On It” themselves, many Baltimore advertising experts are keen on the city’s new slogan to be unveiled on Wednesday at the Hippodrome.

“Get In On It” is the city’s new tagline developed by San Francisco’s Landor Associates on behalf of the Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association. The nine-month, $500,000 branding campaign was met with resistance from some members of the Baltimore advertising community who thought a local agency ought to have been selected to craft the campaign.

Though some advertising executives said that a hasty reading of the tagline might make it easily confused with an invitation to “Get It On,” many thought the slogan was provocative.

Yes, “Get it on” would have been provocative, but then the slogan would have cost 167k per word, which was more than Baltimore had budgeted.

Says Blandor the Imponderable: “B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!”

[ More posts about Baltimore | More posts about Maryland More posts about Baltimore Tagline More posts about Balitmore's tagline More posts about Balitmore slogan More posts about Balitmore's slogan ]