the innovative LEDGER
An e-Newsletter from The Innovative Edge™ Inc.

  Vol. 5, No. 1, Spring 2005
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Names People Play
By Jeffrey Govendo

There is a tense drama unfolding in the small town of Newbury, Mass., about 30 miles north of Boston. Newbury is home to the venerable Governor Dummer Academy, which claims to be the nation's oldest boarding school (founded 1763). It was named after William Dummer, lieutenant governor and acting Massachusetts governor from 1716-1728. Recently, the board of directors decided that the governor's surname simply doesn't convey the high academic standards or quality of student found at the academy. Just the opposite, in fact. "The first impression," says John M. Doggett, headmaster, "sometimes doesn't convey what the school is all about." Advocates of the change say a new name will make the school more marketable outside Greater Boston, where people are already familiar with it.

Accordingly, Doggett announced early last month the board's decision to change the institution's name. To what, we don't know yet, but presumably nothing with the word "Dummer" in it.

But wait! No sooner was the announcement made, than a large contingent of students, faculty and (especially) alumni came out screaming, "Forever Dummer!" To drop a name that has been associated with academic excellence for some 243 years, they protested, is disrespectful, not to mention self-destructive from a PR perspective. So fierce has their outcry been that the school board agreed to think about it some more (translation: gauge the impact on alumni relations), leaving open the possibility of keeping it the Dummer after all.

Such is the emotional power of a name.

Conventional wisdom states that when trying to come up with a name, one should avoid all possible negative connotations, which can kill an otherwise fine product, service or business. In the late 1990's, Reebok introduced a women's running shoe they had (inexplicably) named Incubus. After shipping over 50,000 pairs, they were dismayed to learn the name refers to a mythical demon that attacks women in their sleep. Wrong image!

I am always amazed to see companies spending millions to plan and execute sophisticated marketing strategies for new products and services, yet they treat the naming of these products and services as little more than an afterthought. Arguably, the name given to a product is the most important element of its marketing strategy. Certainly it's the most enduring; you can change almost anything else, but rarely the name itself. Yet it is not uncommon for a name to be decided in an office contest, a conversation at the CEO's dinner table, or in the case of Incubus, heaven knows where.

Here are several points to keep in mind the next time you have to come up with a name for your new product, service or business:

• Above all, it should be memorable. Generally, this means short, yet some longer names are quite memorable too. "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, but it's hard to forget.
• It should bring to mind the key benefits of the product. TurboTax would not appeal to those who are looking for a slow, tedious tax preparation experience, would it?
• Ideally, it should create positive associations. You wouldn't really want to hug a Huggies, but the name certainly has a feel-good quality.
• It should be trademark-able, and in the age of www, domain-eligible too.
  

All this said, it remains that there are products out there that do quite well in spite of (or because of?) names that defy the conventions. Often, like the academy bearing the good governor's moniker, these are family names. For years Smucker's Jelly has made its decidedly unattractive-sounding name the focus of its advertising slogan ("With a name like Smucker's...").

So let's see, now... "With a name like Dummer..."

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Names We Like

Continuing our theme, here are some creative names we've come across.

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Innovation Quotation