Want to have an impact on the environment and help whales, too?  This post is probably not going to be of interest to you.

This blog used to be filled with a common type of post - mostly containing diatribes written by me that railed on naming contests as ineffective, divisive, and generally rife with suckitude. 

Well, a new dawn in naming contests has arrived.

Whale naming competition

More than 11,000 possible whale names were submitted but we are now down to the last 30 possible whale names...which ones will be given to the wonderful humpback whales currently travelling on the Great Whale Trail?

Choose your favourite name from among the 30 below and hit the submit button at the bottom of the page. You can only vote once but you can ask as many friends to vote as you like.

Due to popular demand, the voting has been extended until the 7th of December 2007 at 17:00 Amsterdam time. So vote now and get all your friends to vote too.

Here's the list of names we're given to choose from:

Any of those stand out to you?

What do YOU think the results were?

Amazingly, I'm not against this sort of contest.  What's the harm in giving a whale with a stupid name?  Not much - it'll get press in the short term and people will remember the event for a while.  It keeps the contest sponsor in the news for a bit.  It's a lot like naming a baby panda - it gives a normally quiet entity like a zoo the ability to create interest with almost no investment in marketing. 

It's short term, it's low risk... it's bubblegum marketing.  You chew it for a minute or two and spit it out after its done its job.  

(I'm actually surprised that we don't see "Stephen Colbert" or perhaps "Bababooey" in the list...)

Now... imagine if this had been your company you were naming.  How'd you like to be the Mister Splashy Pants bar and grill?  (Okay... that might actually be fun...)  The Mister Spashy Pants Mortuary, maybe?  Imagine trying to find the CEO to run that company...

Hat tip to Jeffry Pilcher for reeling this in.