The design themes of this clothing company are based on sensibilities from the nineteen sixties. However, “sixties” and “sixty” have very different meanings to their young female audience. What twenty something woman would flinch at the notion of being a “Miss Sixty”? Every single one of them.

Seriously though, how is it that these pricey purses, which everyone refers to as “a Merkin”, can keep their cachet given the negative meaning of the word? It’s because consumers are never, ever literalists. The “negative” meaning just gives people something to remember, to talk about, to have a laugh about. It never stands in the way of sales and is great word of mouth. The “negative” is really a positive.

If more companies were focused on keeping the cash register ringing, rather than on silly personal thoughts like “ I don’t want to be on the board of Merkin, let’s not name it that”, we’d have a far bigger pool of cost effective names out there. Naming needs to be a business decision, not a personal one.

More on the theory of negativity can be read here.

Says Blandor the Imponderable: “That name puts the cod back in my codpiece. Jouissance! I’ve been sporting this merkin on my dome for years, perhaps now the cruel taunting will be at an end. The most uniquely unique name to ooze through the pipe since this jagged chestnut was passed.“

Executives at Irving Oil Ltd. knew they had a problem with their Mainway brand when a survey found that only 3 percent of shoppers there correctly identified the store they’d just visited.

More than 96 percent of customers called it “the Irving station.”

So, the Canadian company has launched an ambitious plan to rebrand its 350 convenience stores, including 50 in Maine. Its stores in Elliot and Wells this weekend will became the first in Maine to get the new moniker – Bluecanoe.

“Bluecanoe” name [sic] doesn’t mean anything in particular – yet. The company will spend an enormous amount of money (it won’t say how much) infusing the word with the meaning that Irving wants consumers to take from it.

“Before Starbucks became all about gourmet coffee, what did it mean? Before Amazon was an online retailer, what did it mean?” asked Tim Guen, senior brand manager at Irving. “That’s a marketer’s dream, to start with an empty vessel and imbue it with meaning.”

We were hoping that the one-word presentation of Bluecanoe was a typo and the actual name would at least be Blue Canoe, but no such luck. Since the logo treats the two words with different colors to distinguish them, however, let’s consider the two words separately, in which case the name actually does have meaning. It’s very Canadian, evokes a lake somewhere, and it rhymes internally, something that has helped make 7-11 memorable. In its sector, Blue Canoe is instantly memorable and leaves competing gas station convenience store names like Speedy Mart, Quick Stop and Kwik Shop in the dust.

Is the name too dot-bomb-y? It would be if Blue Canoe was an Internet based business, but this is different headspace. It’s important to remember that consumers compartmentalize these things, only processing the names in context. Of the water-based names, this is a good one given the competitive landscape. Nothing like the water foul committed by Sag Harbor, a company that sells clothing to soccer moms. Think about that for a second.