Just read a piece in BusinessWeek's SmallBiz magazine, "Namestorming" (Dec 2007/Jan 2008) about how to come up with a compelling, memorable name.
The author quotes the wonderful folks who brought us such doozies as Agilent, Aquent, Livent, Levilent, Naviant, Telegent, Telegy, Meritel and other empty soulless names. Companies like Landor, Interbrand, and Enterprise IG charge corporate lemmings six figures to come up with crap like this! PT Barnum would be proud!
These so-called experts make it seem like a terribly challenging thing to come up with a compelling memorable name- something best left to experts like themselves. Here's a 1999 quote from someone at Landor "We still don't know how compelling a brand Yahoo! will be 10 years from now. I sense a real missed opportunity." Oh yeah! Agilent would have been a whole lot better!
And the unmitigated arrogance of these people! "We're not really interested in what a client wants," says one famous namer. Oh, yes, he's the one who came up with Aquent.
Well, gotta go brush my teeth and rinse with Aquent. (Oh! They are a Temp agency? Nevermind.)
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5 comments:
Hey Jim -
I've worked at Aquent (previously: MacTemps) for over a decade and was even in the meeting when "Aquent" was presented. Although I don't believe that that the professional namers of the world are the only one's who can come up with names that last, I do believe that coming up with a name that a company can grow into (which is what we were looking for) is harder than most people think (and, believe me, I've tried).
That being said, I think that one litmus test that should be applied to any potential name is, "can people pronounce it correctly the first time they see it." Sadly, our name, as much as I've grown accustomed to it, did not and does not pass that test.
Matt
I never realized it, but yeah many of those names do in fact SUCK. I don't mind Aquent so much, in fact I kinda like it. Did I pronounce right the first time? No. I've been using a short A. The other names are really bad though, Telegent, Agilant? Horrible. These frickin types of names are everywhere.
I never realized it, but yeah many of those names do in fact SUCK. I don't mind Aquent so much, in fact I kinda like it. Did I pronounce right the first time? No. I've been using a short A. The other names are really bad though, Telegent, Agilant? Horrible. These frickin types of names are everywhere.
I never realized it, but yeah many of those names do in fact SUCK. I don't mind Aquent so much, in fact I kinda like it. Did I pronounce right the first time? No. I've been using a short A. The other names are really bad though, Telegent, Agilant? Horrible. These frickin types of names are everywhere.
I never realized it, but yeah many of those names do in fact SUCK. I don't mind Aquent so much, in fact I kinda like it. Did I pronounce right the first time? No. I've been using a short A. The other names are really bad though, Telegent, Agilant? Horrible. These frickin types of names are everywhere.
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