• The sites become the target of other bloggers (like this one) who immaturely point to the inactive blogs and say “how can a company involved in branding leave such a big hole in its own brand?” We’ve been waiting to catch a word… any word… from these guys for ages.
• Surfers who do end up finding the site may think that the company is no longer in business if the site hasn’t been updated in almost a year. Kinda makes you wonder what sort of meaning the site is rich with…
• If prospects get to a site that hasn’t been updated for ages and also has blank pages all over the place then I’m pretty sure the prospects are going to motor their way over to other purveyors of branding.
• And finally – if your name suggests that you’ve got plenty of labor sitting around then you’d better find time to get at least one of your experts onto your blog to keep things up to date. Monkey – groom thyself!

I hereby pledge to pull down my blog – or at least notify everyone that I’m closing up shop – if I’m alive and unable to keep the standards of the blog high. Anything else cheapens the field of branding. (I reserve the right to ditch the blog if I’m dead or get mad cow disease.)


Maybe the active branding and naming blogs can come up with a catchy name for blogs of indeterminate status.


My Submission: “Schrödinger’s Blog Syndrome” I’d suggest that someone grab that name and run with it, but no one will ever be able to spell it… (Certainly we Americans have a problem with umlauts. I for one have no clue how to type them[ed: or didn't until Bob helped me out!]. Perhaps the Germans can make it work.)


Proper usage includes:

Oh crud. Yet another blog lost to Schrödinger.


Looks like Schrödinger has been adding to his blogroll


With about 20% of naming bloggers afflicted with Schrödinger’s Syndrome we’re keeping a close watch on William Lozito for signs of weakness.


That’s it. If y’all don’t stop messing with me I’m going to go Schrödinger on this blog.

Not bad for a Friday morning. (Too bad that someone already has the website.)


Tate Linden
Principal Cönsultant
Stokefire Cönsulting Gröup
7Ö3-778-9925

This is pretty odd when you consider that this is the same company that released “Sosumi.” They went from challenging the establishment to being the establishment.

The latest? Apple is going after a startup firm for using the term “Pod.” Even when “Pod” is part of a larger word…

This smacks of the trouble Apple got into when

they wouldn’t let others license the Macitosh technology or name. By the time they came around it was too late to be successful. Apple computers became a niche product because they wouldn’t share the secret ingredients until everyone had the ingredients of their main competitor (the PC.) Once everyone knew how to build PCs with the Microsoft Operating System there was no need to try to work with Apple.

Apple’s protection of the “Pod” terminology seems to go against the grain of their established messages and philosophy. Where is the “Think Different” of yesteryear? Where are the great ideas that will bring the next trends in design?

Why are the creatives hiding behind the lawyers? The power of the name is in the full name or in the first letter – or perhaps even in the pattern of a single letter in front of the word “pod” (a word seemingly based on the format of the word “eMail” – and you don’t see anyone trying to protect the word “mail” now, do you?)

Yes there are valid issues buried in here – but we think that the negative press in combination with the publicly friendly and supportive image that Apple puts forth can result in another Macintosh debacle.

We’re not sure if anyone else remembers, but in the late 90s and early 2000s Apple was on its last legs – and it was there due to the ineffectiveness of their Macintosh line (which in our humble opinion was caused by their protectionist legal strategy.)

C’mon Apple… Think Different!

Click these links for other takes on this story.

[Ed - Apple has corrected itself and stated that they only want to protect the word Pod in conjunction with a portible music player. Jogging foot-doctors everywhere run for cover.]

Tate Linden
Principal Consultant
Stokefire Consulting Group
703-778-9925

. A branding agency should be aware not only of the brand of the company and products they’re working to position, but also of the direct effect of their engagement with the company. An advertising campaign released shortly before the retrenchment announcements thanked the staff for helping it reach its profit goals.


Doesn’t seem exactly sincere, does it? “Thanks for your hard work – now go away.” How, exactly, does this move benefit the brand image? How could something like this happen three months into a multi-million dollar branding engagement?


The fact that Coles Myer’s spokesperson won’t go futher than saying the investment amount ($5 million) is inaccurate doesn’t help things. Nor does the fact that this contract was awarded without going through a bidding process. It just seems shady – and that’s something that probably isn’t part of the brand plan.


We await the official rebrand release with baited breath. With two steps backwards before the program has even been launched, it’ll be interesting to see how effective this multi-million dollar campaign can be after being damaged before it is fully crafted.


And as for this comment from the article:

“I think it’s the richest fee we ever heard of, in the world, for a logo,” a source familiar with the rebranding process said.

That’s just sour grapes. This is (or should be) about more than colors and shapes. Mccann and Futurebrand craft brand strategies, not just cute icons. But their job just got a whole lot harder.


…and if for some reason this does get launched as just a new logo… well… we don’t want to think about that.


Here are some thoughts from other bloggers on the rebranding. Currently there aren’t many positive vibes.


Tate Linden
Principal Consultant
Stokefire Consulting Group
703-778-9925

What happens when your government tells you to change your name – and you refuse? Probably something a lot like this:

According to new amendments to the law “On science”, all academies, which have state status, should be renamed to “state academies”. [... but] “No one is going to rename the Russian Academy of Sciences”, said the President [of the RAS]

The justification given was that

RAS – Russian Academy of Sciences – is a famous brand, which scientists all over the world know and respect, says the vice-president. It would be a mistake to make any changes.

We like the justification – even if we can’t validate it immediately. In our engagements with our clients our first assumption is that existing names don’t need to be changed. Changing names is a costly process – and it goes beyond paying the “thing namers.” There’s advertising, materials costs, retraining… it can add up to millions – or even hundreds of millions for the biggest companies. When you’ve got a brand with a significant amount of goodwill you should have a darn good reason before you rip out the recognition that the goodwill is attached to.

Perhaps the method of announcing that the change isn’t happening could’ve been a little more delicate, but it certainly shows the risks of top-down management of identity. You can’t just cram a new name down the throats of the employees that have to wear the badge. When you try it you get resistance – usually from the line workers – and that’s bad for the brand. In this case it seems the entire organization – all the way to the top – is against it.

We think US company presidents and marketing heads can learn a lot from this. If you try to rebrand your organization and you don’t go through the process of bringing the staff along for the ride you could end up with something like this – a pulbicly communicated rebuff of the attempt. Even if it isn’t in an internationally distributed press release it’ll find its way to the public – probably via the blogosphere.

So – to the Presidents of countries and companies looking to rename stuff. Make sure you talk with the people people having to live with the new name before you make the change. There’s little worse for company or country image than having the constituency badmouthing the leadership and name directly to the customers.

Tate Linden
Principal Consultant
Stokefire Consulting Group
703-778-9925

WorldCom changed the name to rid itself of the scandalous history. Philip Morris only changed the name of the parent company – and moved all the non-tobacco business under that banner. Philip Morris is still the name of the cigarette company, but Kraft Foods is now a division of Altria, not Philip Morris. At least that’s what we think all of this means.


In both cases the leadership of the companies and presumably the consultants who named the firms were pleased with the results.


In a recent Op Ed in the New York Times the naming consultant (or at least the guy that reported to the consultant) wasn’t so happy.


John Kenney talks of the process used to create the new brand “beyond petrolium” to replace “British Petroleum.” EDIT: The following item is no longer valid due to a typo from the original post. I spelled “petrolium” and it took me to a camped site. …though it does show that you gotta reserve alternate spellings to protect your brand…

//(Note – we’re not sure this was ever supposed to be a brand – and we’re also pretty sure that the naming consultants messed up here. The website beyondpetrolium.com is currently camped by someone other than BP. A top consultant would likely reserve the leading few names or taglines for their client to ensure that they remain available through the selection process. Names have a way of leaking out and folks are always looking to make a dime.) //

Mr. Kenney also talks of the fact that ultimately the new brand is meaningless in light of the closure of the oil fields in Prudhoe Bay. How can a company state they are beyond petrolium when they stop producing petrolium and don’t provide any other option during the lapse?


We’re a little disturbed by the fact that a naming or branding consultant has gone rogue here. Our job is to help companies create identities that can lead to success. Sometimes even with the best names or concepts a company can’t help but trip themselves up. A new name doesn’t solve the problems inherent in a corrupt or mismanaged organization. The naming consultant’s job is to create an external image that will connect with the audience. One that is as close to genuine and attainable as possible. When the company with the new name falls out of favor the creators of the new brand have an implicit responsibility to remain silent or perhaps even to provide additional help.


To do an about-face when a company is in trouble smacks of grade-school attitudes. Not only is Mr. Kenney being idealistic – something that almost always results in disappointment when applied to real people – he’s being childish. I remember with an acute lack of fondness the many times my early friends and dates would tell me that I “had finally revealed my true self” when I (forgot to call and say goodnight for the first time in three months/neglected to introduce them to my visiting relatives/didn’t give them the one extra ticket to the ballgame/forgot to flush.) C’mon people. We’re always our true selves. The good and the bad go together. If you take the good stuff (like Mr. Kenney did when he optimistically labeled the firm) you’ve gotta take the bad too. It’s a package deal. If we had helped name WorldCom during the heyday of their success we’d have been knocking on their door to try to sort out how to solve the problem when things went south.


Still, we have a feeling we’d like Mr. Kenney if we met him. We even like the methods he discussed in the Op Ed piece. He seems smart, well written, and even highly creative – all things that make a good branding or naming consultant. (See? Even with all of the stuff we didn’t like about what he said we can see that he’s a good person. And if he wants to move beyond this we’d even be happy to help him brand a new identity to distance himself from this controversy.)


We’re thinkin’ “Ford Prefect” sounds just about right.


Check these links for more on the Kenney vs. BP fight.


Tate Linden
Principal Consultant
Stokefire Consulting Group
703-778-9925