We've been watching reaction to our last post with interest.  A few kind comments were sent via email - people who truly believe that we're entering a new era - if only for a short while.  We had a slew of twitter hits and then... we had this:

the company Stokefire are just running out of ideas for names and trying to convince their clients of an alternative direction?

Dude...  That's just harsh.  (Although I note that John Amy, the commenter, is from the UK, so perhaps the waves of hope and change haven't yet reached his shores.  He's likely still soaking in the cynicism and skepticism.)

Rest assured, World, that we've not run out of name ideas.  (Yeah, we said "World"... Remember we're in the era of hope.) We just think that for the next six months a lot of the old-style aggressive names aren't going to work so well.  After that we'll have to reevaluate.  People in the US don't want the Rant phone.  We don't want Cocaine the energy drink or Meth coffee.  We as a people want to believe that we are better than that.  If we (as branders) don't address this near-term there's a good chance that our clients will suffer.  I don't care how great a job we might do with an edgy brand - it won't do as well now as it would've a year ago.  There's less money, there's still a lot of left-over edgy messaging from companies that are slow to adjust, and the concept just doesn't connect like it did before.  The market isn't disillusioned (the key to the success of edgy branding,) it's both terrified and hopeful.  Neither state lends itself to investing in an edgy brand.

Want us to develop that edgy brand anyhow?  Sure!  We'll do it, but we'll deliver it (as we always do) with a lengthy analysis of the risks, costs, and effort involved.  By the time you read through it there's a good chance you'll end up asking for a do-over - or perhaps you'll delay the launch of your brand until the market is ready to receive it.

There's a loosely related topic I hope to address soon.  With the economic melt-down there are many luxury brands that haven't quite established a solid base of clients to keep them afloat.  We all no the mantra "Never Compete On Price" but we're starting to see this erode.  What happens to luxury brands when they start to drop their pricing into the non-exclusive range?  When the recession ends will they be able to reclaim their status, or will new brands have to be built to replace them?

Alas, that is a topic for another day.

I'm intrigued.  Over the past few months there has been a marked change in the way new brands have been launching.  The over-the-top honesty seems to be fading.  Many of the techniques and strategies we might've advised as having the potential for immediate impact are looking less appealing now.  People just don't want to hear honesty - they want to believe there is something better.

We've been discussing this off and on for about a year - the idea that when everyone is being forthright and plain spoken in their dealings the effectiveness of the approach is impacted.  This might be why a message of hope just defeated the Plain Talk Express...

I am officially predicting that we're going to see a whole slew of advertising and new brands that attempt to capitalize on the new era of "hope and change" that seems to have begun a bit over a week ago.  The "Yes. We. Can." movement is here.  Marketers are moving away from the wry approach - and are even dropping the sexy sales pitches.  Heck, even luxury isn't selling.

If I'm right then Samsung is probably going to regret their recent name choice.  I'm guessing the Rant isn't going to do well in this market.  Instead look for new names to pop up that speak to our hopes and dreams.  Phones with names like Breathe, Lift, Give, and Chance are going to be here in a matter of months.  Count on it.

I'm getting emails with promotions attempting to capitalize on this "new era."  At first I felt guilty that I wasn't embracing change.  Then I saw seven more emails from vendors selling everything from sweaters to website updates using the exact same "Change and Hope" phrase.  Change and Hope are the new Sex and Luxury.  And maybe Candor, too.

I of course blame Obama's speech writers and strategists.  In a nation that seems to be in crisis he's pretty much the only thing staying afloat.  Everyone wants to be associated with him.  If he continues to do well and somehow reaches his potential it could have lasting impact on the worlds of marketing, advertising, and branding.  We'll see advertising as oration... back-to-back empowerment messages for everything from Rolaids to leather repair kits.  If he fails spectacularly I'm guessing you'll see an abrupt switch back to wry cynicism. 

My hope?  That somehow this new era actually sticks.  As much fun as it is to market with a wink, it would be far more fulfilling to live in a world where people embrace positive ideals and endeavor to speak in ways that are both easy to understand and beautiful to hear.  Sure, it'll make my job more difficult (I'm a good speaker, but not so good on artful oration.)  But I'd love to watch a market  develop around hope - and then develop brands that can both embrace this positivity and stand out in a sea of great words and ideas.

Anyone else with me?

I had the pleasure of speaking with the experts at the US Post Office about direct marketing and naming.  It was a fun conversation and turned into a pretty informative article that can be found here.

...It's a pretty long article, that should allow me to hit the pause button on the blog for a couple days, right?

At last the origin of the Ethiopian emails has been found.  We have met the enemy, and it is us.

Photo taken Friday Oct 31 2008 at Starbucks in Old Town Alexandria - across the street from Town Hall. Sadly... not a fake and not staged either.

The last two weeks have been very good to Stokefire.  A flurry of contract signings and interest.  I've been talking with the staff about it and felt it was worth a short post to explain what appears to have led to the bump.

We've gradually adjusted our approach over the last year to be more reflective of how we really operate and why people invest in us.  We've got exactly the same development process that we had before, but we've started to disclose the fact that we're not a traditional naming firm (if such a thing exists), because a naming firm is expected to deliver a batch of names and then push you out the door (perhaps after droppin' a logo on you, too.)  After about two years serving the non-profit marketplace I had the belated insight that I should ask our clients why we're doing so well there.  In almost every instance we were hired for the stuff we don't advertise.

That's not really a good sign, is it?  Especially for someone who is supposed to be on top of this kind of thing.  (Okay, so that's a little disingenuous.  I'm pretty sure we're not going to advertise all our best aspects - but we probably should've disclosed more than we did.)

We're hired for naming - not just because we're good at naming - but because we're good at all of the things that surround naming.  Before we even start the naming process we develop the full brand strategy and roadmap. We've gotten some great projects on the strength of that alone.  And on the other side - after we develop the name we help the organization and other creative partners to make the brand come alive.  We build that compelling and useful user's manual, assist in the development of a visual brand that builds on all the stuff we've already delivered, and... well... we provide a bit of secret sauce that quite frankly you're going to have to invest in our services to see.

Ultimately we're being hired because we build a cohesive and compelling story that ensures every action our clients undertake is driving them towards their vetted goals.  Oh yeah... I forgot.  We check out the client goals to ensure they're realistic and desirable before we work on them.  That was another thing we heard was a motivating factor.

Final proof of our unadvertised strengths being what was driving business has come in the last two weeks.  We landed a series of projects that - for the first time - have nothing to do with name development.  A few months ago our prospective clients realized that while our core offering was great, it was also something that they didn't need and started slyly negotiating with us so that we're essentially delivering a donut.  Our core offering has been neatly extracted from our service and we're given a name at the start (one with some existing issues that we'll have to live with) and told to develop a brand strategy, roadmap, and marketing campaign to make it work.  In some cases the name has been around for decades, in others it's only been around for a few months - but in all cases clients are realizing that the traditional appraoch they were trying to use (marketing and advertising blasts, mostly) wasn't working because there was no real strategy in place.

There are a lot of firms that would turn down an a la carte approach to branding because they couldn't control the outcome.  Not us.  We're finding that it's a true test of our abilities - and it is much like what happens when a client selects a naming concept that scores near the bottom of our list (as has occassionally happened.)  A great branding firm can build a story around just about any name and create an identity that succeeds in spite of the handicap.  Sure, we'd love a crack at fixing the name, but that's not always going to happen.

If there's a lesson in this it is perhaps to make sure when your prospects start asking questions you do more than just answer them.  In some cases (as with us) neither party will know exactly what is really being asked.  Clients were calling us and asking if we did membership campaigns (which we don't actively sell) and we were answering that it was one of the features of our full naming process.

The client was looking for a solution and we had it hidden inside of something they didn't need.  We should've listened and said yes and adjusted on the fly.  Instead it took a series of similar conversations ("can you do x?" "Well... yes if you also want y and z") to determine that not only can we do what they were asking for, we can do it better - or at least differently - than anyone else. 

I'm pretty sure we lost a handful of opportunities early in 2007 when I personally didn't see how the concept could be developed.  Apologies to my team and to the customers who we couldn't help for that misstep. 

Shame on me.  Here's to hoping other creative professionals can learn from my mistake and my too-slow realization. 

You might not intuitively understand why we'd post quotes from Spinal Tap on the Thingnamer blog... but maybe this will help:

Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest): "And then, we looked at each other and said..."
David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean): "Said, look, why not?"
Nigel: "...we might as well join up. You know?"
David: "So, we became the Originals."
Nigel: "Right."
David: "And, uh, we had to change our name, actually."
Nigel: "Well, there was another group, in the east end, called the Originals and we had to rename ourselves."
David: "the New Originals."
Nigel: "the New Originals."
David: "Yeah."
Nigel: "And they became..."
David: "...the Regulars. They changed their name back to the Regulars. And we thought we could go back to the Originals, but what's the point?"

Who knew that two fake rock stars could say something that would actually give intelligent business-people a lesson in naming.  The lesson?  Do some research! 

A good number of people who approach us have found out too late that the name they've selected is actually owned by someone else.  (It can cost a heckuva lot of money to undo a name.)  We come in and help them do it right...

We love our jobs because we get to save a whole lot of people a whole lot of trouble.

Which leads to the second quote...

Derek: "We're lucky."
David: "Yeah."
Derek: "I mean, people should be envying us. You know?"
David: "I envy us."
Derek: "Yeah."
David: "I do."
Derek: "Me too."

Amen, brothers.

A-freakin'-men.

Yep.  Just dipping my lips in to prepare for what may be another long journey without blogging.  We're running at close to capacity right now, with new gigs starting as soon as the existing ones finish.  It's a pretty nice change from what were comparatively slow Summer months. 

Anyhow, what that means for the blog is that I get to post late at night, or in airports, or... hardly ever.  It's a tough call when one can write to the emptiness that is the Web or one can work on billable projects.  I know quite a few companies in the industry that hire ghostwriters and I just can't stomach that.  Sure, a blog can boost traffic by keeping a website active... but it just doesn't seem genuine if the words don't come from the person whose name is on the post.  When I don't post it means things are going well, and that (other than this post) when I return there'll be something good to share. 

When we make our next round of hires (looking at some time in late November right now) I hope that'll free me up to bare more of my soul here.  And maybe I can get back to sharing more thoughts on what makes a great name, or perhaps interviewing other namers, or slinging mud at those who deserve it, or eating crow, or pretty much anything other than writing poor excuses about why my posts aren't better or more frequent.

Oh - and a big Bonjour/Hello/Guten Tag to our first clients from Canada and Germany - two countries we've been longing to visit develop business in for quite some time.  Great to do it with such well established, respected, and even fun firms.

Alternate title - "Pardon the Interruption"

Microsoft let it slip on their Vista blog that they've selected the name for the next version of their product.  We here at Stokefire HQ had assumed that they'd just do the normal techie thing and just iterate the version number from 1 to 2.

We were wrong.

Really wrong.

After spending what we can only imagine is Billions on developing the Vista brand through advertising, branding, marketing and every other -ing they could invest in it seems that the Microsofties are going to admit defeat.  Rather than try to re-convince people that the Vista product isn't really all that bad and that THIS time they've gotten all the bugs they introduced in Vista 1.0 resolved they're just going to go back to good old Windows.  Windows 7, in fact. 

(Any time you have to trick people into using your software you know you've got negative brand equity.)

There's actually a pretty interesting thing happening here.  Because the last numbered Windows release was 6 and the next one is 7...  hmm... it's almost like... hey!  Wait a minute! 

Vista. Never. Existed.

Brilliant! Now do it while waiving your hand slowly across your body...

These are not the droids you're looking for.

...and... Scene!

We have a service that scans the Internets for us to find news on the naming industry (such as it is) and we are a little puzzled by something that popped up on our radar this week.

A post to a blog at SusanSuarez.com (post now deleted but archived here) titled "Vayton, The First Naming Company" caught our attention.  We thought we were pretty good with the history of the naming industry and this Vayton being the first in the industry was new to us.  Seemed like we might be needing a remedial lesson in the industry.

So we had an intern start digging.  The first line of the post (from earlier this week) read "Looking to brand your company, website or blog? Vayton Brand Capital is a name creating, brand management and domain..." but we couldn't get much more than that since the post by a work-at-home mom was pulled.  So we looked elsewhere - and found a pattern.  Something big appears to be happening at Vayton this week since at least four (now five) blog posts were written about them by people around the globe.

Just this week (and evidently only this week - we couldn't find anything earlier) we've got the work-at-home Mom, an Indonesian language blogger who was compelled to write favorably about them... in English.  Then we've got Gizmondo News (sounds important, no?)- whose other posts rave about a small promotional products firm, a small complaints registration firm, a small custom printing firm, and a small PVC banner maker.  And last, a blog about web advertising and SEO that seems, well, a little odd.  (In one paragraph we have a double exclamation point, triple question mark, and an ellipsis with fifteen dots.  And with all that extra punctuation there is no room for spaces following the end of a sentence... though there IS room for spaces both before and after commas.)

Frequent readers know that I am inclined to give organizations the benefit of the doubt when it comes to advertising tactics, but I'm finding that this tactic is getting my blood pressure up.  It appears that Vayton has paid for placement on blogs - and that the blogs that took them up on the offer are of a sort that add no value to the advertiser, and might in fact take credibility away from the brand.  Even if no money changed hands - something must have happened to get this mini-avalanche of blog postings to occur. 

We suppose there's nothing actually immoral about getting little-known bloggers to link multiple times to your site to get a boost in web visibility.  It just feels a little underhanded.  We have a bit of a mantra at Stokefire (one among many, actually) which is this: "If we wouldn't tell people about it on our home page we shouldn't be doing it."  That includes taking on questionable projects, working for questionable clients, or undertaking questionable advertising practices.  Of course this does not mean we'll be bragging about our own branding strategies here... It's more about the fact that we wouldn't feel like we were 'caught' if word got out about how we market ourselves.

So... how about you?  Are you undertaking advertising practices that you would embarrass you if they were found out?  If so, why? 

Remember... your brand is who you are when you think no one is looking.

Sadly, someone is always looking. 

We're not ashamed to say that sometimes it's us.  (Heck, if we didn't check out the competition how would we know if our services were providing good value?)

Note: We've exposed questionable practices before and welcome input from anyone that can shed light on the situation.  When we get something wrong we'll admit it.  And maybe even send a nice box-o-hotness along to the folks that help us out.  The guys at Vayton seem quite capable and well respected, so we'd love to hear about how this thing slipped into the mix.

Addendum 10/13/08: Alexandra Watkins had some time over the weekend to look into Vayton a bit more closely than we did.  She found all sorts of interesting tidbits about 'em online.  Not many of 'em were good.  Based on her post's content I'm guessing she didn't get paid much to write about about 'em... or if she did then perhaps I should put in my request for payment too. 

After reading her post I almost feel guilty for bringing up their name.  I don't think they were ready for this much attention.

Thanks to Marc Hershon - a fellow naming industry veteran - for pointing out Alexandra's follow-on-esque post to us. 

Back in April there was a news blurb about Pizza Hut changing their name to Pasta Hut.  Everyone thought it was an April Fools prank. 

Then... two days ago we see this:

Pizza Hut renamed Pasta Hut to promote healthy eating

London, October 7 (ANI): Worlds largest selling pizza restaurant chain, Pizza Hut, has been renamed Pasta Hut as part of a 100million-pound overhaul to promote healthy eating.

The international franchise, which has made its commerce in the UK since 1973, has revealed that it is introducing healthier food for big nutritional changes.

While a new pasta Carte du jour will be offered, the childrens menu shall embrace hidden vegetables, along with a complimentary side salad.

The health conscious company has removed hydrogenated vegetable oils from its menu, and a saturated fat removal programme is underway.

I am confident that people will like what they see when they come into our restaurants, the Sun quoted Pasta Hut head Alasdair Murdoch as saying.

The new Pasta Hut outlets will be unwrapped in 2009 and 2010, with interiors of 700 current UK restaurant being given a face-lift. (ANI)

I'm pretty sure this is still a PR stunt - especially given the fact that pastahut.com is listed as an online auction portal belonging to one Kevin Smith.  And if it isn't a PR stunt, well... Kevin is about to become a very rich man.

(Note to big companies going through a rebranding:  DO NOT ANNOUNCE YOUR NAME UNTIL YOU SECURE THE WEBSITE.  Even if you might be able to go to ICANN and protest - why not just do it right in the first place?)