Stay focused Tiger

by Barry Silverstein

As a brand category leader, you should be inspirational, innovative, and ahead of the pack.

That’s why it’s disappointing to see a leader like Gatorade being a follower.

At one time, Gatorade was unique. In the 1960s, a football coach at the University of Florida asked some university physicians if they could help players who were wilting from heat and exhaustion. They created a balanced carbohydrate-electrolyte beverage and named it Gatorade. It pioneered a new category.

Now the sports drink category is one of the beverage industry’s shining stars, made all the more interesting by the addition of energy drinks.

Initially, Gatorade’s primary rival, Powerade, didn’t seem to pose much of a threat. But then came Glaceau’s vitaminwater brand. Vitaminwater has functional names keyed to certain vitamin ingredients, simple clean label design, and a sense of humor. Entertainers like Carrie Underwood and 50 Cent, and sports stars like Carl Edwards (car racing), LeBron James (basketball), and David Wright (baseball) endorse the product. It makes Gatorade look, well, stodgy.

Gatorade reacted, recently re-branding itself as “G,” with revised packaging and a new “G” ad campaign. The brand also started “Mission G,” an elaborate online network.

Things got a little fuzzier when Gatorade started naming its new products. The original Gatorade formula is now called G, but there is also a Michael Jordan “limited edition” G in three flavors and “G2,” which is 1/2 the calories of G. (Shouldn’t “G2” be twice the calories of G?)

The other five products in the family are even more perplexing. They carry the full Gatorade name, along with ad slogans on the labels. “Gatorade A.M.,” for example, screams SHINE ON, with a type treatment that makes it read “SH  INE  ON.” It leaves the consumer with more questions than answers: Should I only drink this in the morning? Will it make me “shine on” all day? Would I be better off drinking, say, the stuff in the bottles that read “BRING IT” or “BE TOUGH”?

And then there’s the unfortunately named TIGER FOCUS, with you-know-who’s eyes staring at you from the bottle label. This product has just been dropped from Gatorade’s line up in a move the company said was planned before the Tiger Woods scandal.

Vitaminwater, on the other hand, offers fifteen different drinks, and the consumer can figure out what every one of them does. Each label is color-coded to match the drink, each name is meaningful (such as Balance, Endurance, B-relaxed), and each product has a single flavor and distinctive ingredients. Yet they all look and feel like they are very much part of one big happy family. Maybe that’s one of the reasons vitaminwater has had “triple digit growth for five straight years,” according to the product line’s manufacturer.

Gatorade, meanwhile, isn’t finished reinventing itself. According to Advertising Age, the brand will introduce a “G Series” of product categories with new names and new packaging in 2010. Gee, let’s hope this one-time category leader can even the score.

Naming or renaming a boat is never a task to undertake lightly.  We all know the power of Mother Nature.  Her cousin Neptune, king of the sea, is no slouch either.

According to tradition, Neptune (or Poseidon to the ancient Greeks) keeps a ledger with the name of every vessel sailing his vast domain.  He is personally familiar with our boats.  And he has a reputation for being as watchful and jealous as the Old Testament God about ensuring that he is properly respected and addressed.  So when it comes to naming or changing the name of a sailboat – especially yours – caution is the watchword.  As in all things nautical.

I have renamed both sailboats I’ve owned.  It’s not that I’m especially picky. It’s just that some names should never be used.  My first sailboat was a Roberts 36  – a centre cockpit sloop built in Australia.  I bought her on the internet in the winter of 2001 while staying in a farmhouse in France.  The boat was in Malaysia.  She’d been sailed only 125 miles from Phuket, Thailand, by an American couple who were already getting very acrimoniously divorced.  (To shield his money from the IRS, the husband had put all the paperwork in his wife’s name. So he was none too pleased that she was selling the boat and pocketing all the money.)

I wanted none of their karma aboard the vessel which would be my home.  Besides, she was called “Further”. There were Sailing Directions for the South Pacific, so I get the idea. But if a boat is a lady, then this didn’t seem such a feminine name.  To make the matter more unbearable, the yacht’s tender was called “A Little Further”.  Cute maybe, but only the first time you read it.

Her name had to be changed.  I researched online what to do to please Neptune, observe tradition and avoid the pitfalls.

The thing is NOT to carry on board anything with the new name. A big no-no.  Nothing with the new name should be taken aboard until after the de-naming and naming ceremony.  If this is unavoidable, the new name must be covered.

The ideal time to change the name is while the boat is out of the water. To my mind, a boat out of water is not really a vessel at all – more a container of expensive problems – so I think it makes sense to commission the change before your boat regains her true nature.  Then have a naming ceremony on the water.  Followed by celebrations appropriate to the seriousness of the occasion.

All evidence of the former name must be removed from Neptune’s (Poseidon’s) Register of Vessels – the forerunner, no doubt, to Lloyds Register of Shipping. John Vigor, author of ” The Seaworthy Offshore Sailboat, warns, “Be ruthless. Sand away the old name from the lifebuoys, transom, topsides, dinghy, and oars. Yes, sand it away. Painting over is not good enough. You’re dealing with gods here, you understand, not mere dumb mortals. If the old name is carved or etched, try to remove it or, at the very minimum, fill it with putty and then paint it over.”

This is not the place to discuss how to choose a new name, though it may be useful to consider two points that are commonsense and a legal nicety.

Firstly, if you may want to register (rather than license) the vessel – so that you can enter foreign ports – the name must be unique in the Canadian Registry.  And not just the spelling of the name – it should not sound like another name.

Secondly, it’s probably good seamanship to pick a name that can be recognized easily over the radio.  The name of some boats seem unpronounceable even when you read the name on the vessel.

According to John Vigor, “How you conduct the ceremony depends entirely on you. If you’re the theatrical type, and enjoy appearing in public in your yacht club blazer and skipper’s cap, you can read it with flair on the foredeck before a gathering of distinguished guests. But if you find this whole business faintly silly and embarrassing, and only go along with it because you’re scared to death of what might happen if you don’t, you can skulk down below and mumble it on your own. That’s perfectly OK. The main thing is that you carry it out. The words must be spoken.”

I follow Buddhist practice, so in keeping with that tradition and the fact that my boat was in Asia, I invited a Buddhist Thai friend to attend.  “Karuna” is not such a traditional nautical name as “Mayflower”, “Wanderer” or Gin Palace II.  The word is Pali and means “compassion” – one of the four Buddhist virtues.

The appointed day was calm.  The sky deep blue.  A mile out from land (and the all-seeing eyes of other yachties in the marina), I brought the Buddha statue onto the foredeck and lit candles and incense.  I’d written out words for a short ceremony and after reciting the sentences, my friend and I scattered rice over the deck and around the boat.  We opened a bottle of wine, poured a libation on the bow, and settled down for the rest of the afternoon to finish the bottle.

Was this exactly the correct form that Neptune requires?  I don’t know. John Vigor has written his own text for a ceremony, available online.  I sailed “Karuna” happily for almost three years, and sold her – for a profit! – just weeks before the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami.  She survived and is still sailing the Andaman Sea, now owned by a Japanese couple.

I wondered if Neptune was playing a joke when I bought my second boat, in Penetanguene in 2006,.  Her name was “Barbarick”.  Okay – not likely to be already registered and not too difficult to catch over the radio.  But really  – Barbarick?  It’s a long way from “Isobar” or “Endeavour”.  And the dinghy was called – Barbie.  Someone thought that was nice – aagh!  The name had to go.

The boat’s new name is Kuan Yin – bodhisattva of compassion. She is one of the most important figures in Mahayana Buddhism and revered by hundreds of millions of people across Asia, especially sailors, fishermen and women in labour!

I sailed the first season with the old name.  Choosing a new name can be as tricky as selecting a newborn’s name – after all she is your baby. And is takes time to process all the Registry paperwork.  Meanwhile, I removed all evidence of the old name on board and happily scraped “Barbie” off the tender.

With a computer-aided cutting machine, a kindly gentleman in Penetanguishene made a  six-foot-long stencil in words and Chinese characters from a pdf file created by a Chinese designer friend in Toronto.  The intention is to paint the name in gold letters on the dark green hull.  Six foot long on a 32-foot boat is perhaps over doing it.  But the Ships Registry regulations require that the smallest letters be at least 4 inches high.  If the name of the home port has to be so large, the name of the vessel needs to be huge.  (The Register of Ships can’t tell the difference between a sailboat and a supertanker.)

In the rush of boat projects and to get launched and through the Trent-Severn Waterway in 2007, there was only time to outline the new name with a black marker pen.  I did light incense and candles on the small altar in the cabin.  However, technically, the naming ceremony has yet to be completed properly.
I’m not taking this lightly.  I don’t want to meet the wrath of Neptune or forfeit the compassion of Kuan Yin.  This winter, in Thailand, I’ve had a 1.3 metre figurehead of Kuan Yin riding a dragon carved in teak to be mounted, I hope, on the mizzen mast.  This coming summer, the boat will be on the hard as vital refitting take place.  So the application to Neptune for her name to be official changed will be postponed.  However, in the end, proper tradition will be observed and my sense of belonging to the boat deepened.  Not to mention the liquid celebrations that must accompany such a serious business.

©  2008  Dennison Berwick. This article may be republished for noncommercial purposes, with full copyright attribution and notification to the author. Any other use is a violation of copyright.

Never get between a cyborg and his author's daughter.

Google has filed a trademark for the product name “Nexus One” for its upcoming smartphone release. Some think this name stems from the moniker given by Philip K. Dick to the cyborgs in his book “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” Many people know the story of the Nexus-6 cyborgs from the dystopian film “Blade Runner,” based on Dick’s novel. The daughter of the late author is upset by the rumors, and insists that Google never contacted her to arrange for licensing permission.

In another naming controversy, a small design company named Bing! Information Design is suing Microsoft, with the claim that the software company’s search engine is infringing on their trademark.

It isn’t often that the success of one product inspires a company to change its name to the product name. JS-Kit, the makers of the popular commenting web application Echo, has decided to rebrand the company, changing its name to Echo in the process.

Another name change occurred recently, when Wollemi Mining Corporation became Pacific Bepure Industry Inc. Oddly, neither name reflects the company’s business very well: the designing, manufacturing, and selling of moderately priced shoes for women.

A recent study of British dairies revealed that cows with names make more milk, approximately 258 liters more. Popular names include family names as well as herb and flower names. Of course, the correlation doesn’t exist in the name alone. The practice of naming, be it a cow or a company or a new product, is a kind of devotion. A little love goes a long way.

Chief Wahoo – batting cleanup for Indian stereotypes since 1947.

by Jeffery Racheff

Neon headdresses. Gleaming tomahawk axes. Half-naked men covered in war paint – these are not the sights of a Native American war dance. No, they’re staples of American sporting events. Indian images, mascots and logos are ubiquitous at football and baseball games, and there are countless teams throughout the country that use their likenesses. But at what point does their use stop being good clean fun… and cross over into exploitation?

A good majority of sports teams with images derived from Native Americans are called either the Chiefs, the Braves or the Warriors. Their logos range from arrowheads and spears to the profiles of stately-looking Indian warriors. But some representations venture onto shaky ground. The Cleveland Indians’ mascot, Chief Wahoo, has a particularly sunny demeanor that some Native Americans find offensive. His big grin and candy-apple skin color are similar to the stereotypes of “dandified” or happy-go-lucky “colored people” popular in the early 20th century.

To put it in perspective, imagine if the Chief’s skin was turned black, his name changed to Homie Jerome and the feather replaced with an afro-pick. That wouldn’t fly for a second because most of us have come to see that these types of depictions perpetuate negative stereotypes. So is exploiting Red-Face for cheers the same as exploiting Black-Face for laughs? Is allowing a team to call itself the Brooklin Redmen (a lacrosse team in Ontario) really that much different than calling yourself the Dayton Darkies, the Jacksonville Jewboys, or the Chattanooga China Men? And why don’t we have more teams like The University of Northern Colorado’s racial rebuttal, the Fighting Whities?

Native Americans are the only ones who can say whether or not a team name or mascot is offensive. There are those who claim Indians should be treated as human beings, not objects for entertainment, but there are also plenty who welcome the honor as a tribute to their culture’s legacy. The University of Utah Utes, for example, received full approval from the Indian Ute Tribe for use of their name. The Florida State Seminoles mascots, Chief Osceola and his horse Renegade, even don tribe-sanctioned regalia designed by women of the Seminole tribe. And it seems the Supreme Court doesn’t think it’s too big of a deal either. Earlier this month, the nation’s top court decided not to hear a case against the NFL’s name for its Washington franchise, the Redskins, even though the National Congress of American Indians calls it “patently offensive, disparaging and demeaning.”

There are also plenty of teams that exploit other cultures, like Vikings, Trojans and Irish people – so where are their protesters? Well, to start, the Trojans weren’t on the receiving end of a massive genocide. If anything, they were the ones doing the massacring. Also, there are countless city and university sports teams that have little to do with the Native American names they appropriate (unlike Notre Dame and its Fighting Irish), so the two examples can’t be fairly compared.

Still, when Johnny Sports Fan joins in on the Tomahawk Chop, it’s not very likely that he is intentionally acting out ill-will towards Indians or their cultures. He probably just wants to get drunk, watch baseball, and have people leave his team traditions alone. Unfortunately this is a little bigger than athletic traditions – it’s about cultural traditions too. In an age where awareness of the sensitivities of others is virtually inescapable, you have to reconsider what should no longer be tolerated. Finding a mascot not based on people who want no part of it seems like common sense.

Name that ferry: yes, ferries are big in Washington State.

Is there finally a product name for the mythical Apple Tablet? Some people think so, since Apple allegedly acquired the TabletMac trademark from Axiotron last year.

Since September, an advisory committee on Whidbey Island off the coast of Seattle has been gathering potential names for a new ferry between Port Townsend and Keystone. Potential names include Squi Qui, Snakelum, Calista, Skookumchuck, Leschi, Defiance, Haida, The Salish Sea, and Mary Margaret Haugen.

Dockers is rebranding its faded 1990s image with a new line of khakis, with ads reminding men to “wear the pants.”

Comcast has renamed its OnDemand Online service to Fancast Xfinity TV, or Xfinity for short.

Author: Jason Pires
Source: MVC Agency (www.mvcagency.com)
(818) 718-2005 x10

Situation:

After reviewing several agencies, Armen Art, a furniture design and manufacturing company, chose MVC as its marketing partner. Armen Art realized that MVC understood the severity of its situation and is passionate about helping its partner clients create powerful results in the face of adversity and change. MVC presented Armen Art with a powerful creative vision and an unprecedented strategic approach that would be essential to the company’s future. MVC’s strength in lifestyle marketing, modern visual style and strategic thinking served as the right foundation for the leading brand that Armen Art needed to become.

When Armen Art partnered with MVC it was facing an internal renovation that included a change in leadership at a time when the industry itself was experiencing a generational transition and a waning economy. In its 30 year history the company had not made any changes to its brand and marketing. From a sales perspective the word “Art” in the name Armen Art Furniture had become a misleading roadblock as the art and accessories market had grown into its own distinct and thriving segment of the industry. The old logo, two ribbon style and interlaced “A” letters, didn’t do much more to communicate the company’s values or even offer an idea of the type of products the company sold. To worsen the scenario, the company’s marketing strategy had ignored the web. In essence, the company was in danger of failing if it did not make immediate and drastic changes.

Solution:

MVC realized that Armen Art was in need of a complete reinvention of its brand, which would include a fresh new market position and a marketing strategy that leverages the power of the web.

MVC knew that to reinvigorate the company’s appeal it would need to connect with the lifestyles of modern day consumers even though it does not sell directly to consumers. It would also need to demonstrate to its clients within the industry that Armen Art Furniture understands what consumers want in terms of design, quality and price. With this mentality, MVC would go on to help Armen Living bridge the disconnect between its products and the end consumer as it was perceived in the minds of the buyers. Ultimately this would set the platform for consumer brand awareness that will drive the behavior of industry buyers and create further interest in the Armen Art brand and products.

To start the process of rebranding, the Arment Art company name and identity needed to offer a completely new and fresh impression of the company. Through extensively studying the market, Armen Art’s history and the vibrant new product line introduced by the company’s new leaders, MVC decided that to reposition Armen Art it needed project the company’s values beyond those of just a company that sold furniture.

With the understanding that consumers now look for furniture that can help them enhance their lives and express their unique personalities, MVC substituted the word “Art” for the word “Living” in the company’s name, and kept the “Armen” so as not to lose the company’s core personality, culture and existing brand equity. To compliment the new name “Armen Living (Furniture)”, MVC created the tagline “Furniture for Contemporary Lifestyles” to encompass what the company offers and that can be further qualified by the remaining facets of the company’s branding and advertising.

Having set the initial feel for the company’s brand, MVC would then create a modern logo that directly reflects the form and idea of furniture, and a color palette that exudes the warmth of a joyful life while balanced by an air of self-assured sophistication.

MVC would then bring the marketing to life with the campaign titled “This is Living” which gave context to the company’s new name and that is supported by custom lifestyle photography and images depicting the alluring aspects of a sophisticated contemporary lifestyle.

Through the use of a dynamic web video presentation that introduced the direction of the new brand and the vibrant new collection MVC succeeded in generating immediate buzz as well as new business for Armen Living. The video proved to not only keep viewers tuned in to its entire message, but it was also distributed virally through the internet by furniture enthusiasts and followers of the new brand.

Building on the “This Is Living” campaign, MVC created an elegant catalog designed to compliment and unify the eclectic and diverse nature of Armen Living’s new products. MVC also designed and developed a fresh new company website for Armen Living. The website not only features an optimized SEO framework but also social networking aspects that allow users to share the products and content on Facebook, Twitter and other networking websites.

MVC continues to expand the reach of the new brand through a carefully planned and executed marketing strategy which includes PR and advertising campaigns, email marketing.

After only five months of partnering with MVC, Armen Living experienced the best month in sales that it had in over 2 years. The company is not only steadily growing again, it is also poised to be an industry leader in the coming years. The partnership between Armen Living and MVC Agency has been a true success in terms of brand positioning, marketing strategy and most importantly in terms of financial growth for Armen Living.

To learn more about specific aspects of the new brand:

Logo/Brand Identity:
http://www.mvcagency.com/#/works/?cat=55&id=102

Video Presentation:
http://www.mvcagency.com/#/works/?cat=51&id=106

Website:
http://www.mvcagency.com/#/works/?cat=50&id=105

Catalog:

http://www.mvcagency.com/#/works/?cat=52&id=101

You know it's the best because of the crown. Photo: neato_coolville (flickr)

by Mars Riley

Best Western has an identity problem that has been 60 years in the making. Simply put, each of their hotels is an independently owned and operated franchise—each one unique. Considering they have 4,000 hotels in 80 countries, that may be too much uniqueness. It is impossible to predict what kind of hotel you are going to get when you book a room at a Best Western. It might be high-end, low-end, or somewhere in between. There is no way of knowing until you get there. Once when I was in Venice, Italy I was surprised to come across a 3-star Best Western. This unpredictability might be fun on a road trip, but people typically don’t like to roll the dice with hotels. Some internet research probably will help, but the “Best Western experience” is inconsistent to say the least.

To remedy this issue Best Western President and CEO David Kong is considering adding a marketing tag to the name of the hotels. Nothing has been officially announced yet, but early suggestions have been for Best Western, Best Western Plus and Best Western Premier.

Unfortunately for Mr. Kong, many of the franchise owners don’t seem to like his plan.

“When you do this you have what I call a Less Western,” said David Francis, owner of the Best Western of Lynchburg, VA. “I don’t want to be associated as an economy hotel.”

Many of the franchise owners are worried that their hotels will be unfairly labeled as a lesser hotel simply because they don’t have the same amenities (pools, restaurants) the other hotels do. They also don’t want the higher rated franchises to receive more corporate attention and advertising dollars.

This could cause trouble for the potential name change. Unlike some of the other franchisors like Marriott and Hilton, Best Western is a nonprofit membership association with each franchisee paying a fee for advertising, reservations, a frequent-guest program and other support. As a result of this arrangement, they also have a big say in the direction the company takes.

To help convince the franchisees and help shape its new image, Best Western has hired well-known consulting firms Boston Consulting Group and Booz & Co.

“Our consultants have told us that our customers view us as risky,” Kong told franchisees at a recent convention.

“We’re trying to just let the people know what we are and what they can expect—what their experience is going to be no matter what Best Western they go to,” said Rich Schnakenberg, owner of a Best Western in Tempe, AZ.

If they do change to the proposed names, about half of Best Westerns will remain “Best Western” while 45 percent will become Best Western Plus and 5 percent Best Western Premier. Kong believes the altered names will result in new business at all levels, some from new customers, others from roadside regulars and vacationers who might book at the higher-end locations. It will also allow for travel-agencies and tour-companies to better match the hotels with the appropriate customer or tour.

“By better describing ourselves, we hope to get slotted into more programs, and more hotels will get to play,” Kong said. I guess the reason this doesn’t make sense to me is that usually when a company splits off into a high-end and low-end version of themselves, they really try to differentiate the two. It seems like Best Western vs. Best Western Plus doesn’t seem to help on either side of the equation. If they created two different experiences with two distinct names, the chance of survival would be much higher.

by Mars Riley

Earlier this year, as some of you might know, Fiat bought a 35 percent stake in Chrysler and plans to become the majority shareholder after some pesky government loans are repaid.  One of Fiats big goals with Chrysler is to make the line smaller and more efficient with their European building platform. On the opposite end of Chrysler’s efficiency spectrum is Dodge—which Chrysler has owned since 1928. For the last 28 years Chrysler’s most successful brand of pickup truck has been known as the Dodge Ram. But earlier this month, in an effort to create some differentiation, Dodge ditched its horns and decided to let Ram fend for itself. They’ll still be sold under the same roof, but as far as marketing is concerned, the Dodge/Ram relationship is over.

There are arguments on both sides about which name, Dodge or Ram, is more connected to the pickups. The Dodge name has a lot of equity in the truck world and playing around with that equity is risky business. From a literal perspective, the Ram name might be better suited to trucks: smaller cars are better at dodging and bigger trucks are better at ramming. While both Dodge cars and Ram trucks will be sold at the same dealerships, a lot of pickup truck fans are still upset about the split.

In some ways I get their grief. It is odd to say “Ram” by itself. Your mouth senses something is missing. It wants to say “DODGE RAM!” in a deep voice … with a growl, maybe even a twang. Makes you feel macho just saying it. Saying “RAM!” by itself in the same way sounds psychotic and might make someone want to call the police.

From a business perspective, creating the split achieves a few things. First, when Dodge starts to roll out more fuel-efficient models, ‘Ram’ won’t mess up their MPG stats. Secondly, there is speculation that they might be separating Ram to pitch the strong-selling truck line to another automaker. Although it may be understandable in the current financial climate to do what needs to be done to survive, they are running the risk of alienating the loyal Dodge Ram customers.

In an interview the new President and CEO of the Ram brand, Fred Diaz Jr., said, “At the end of the day, the Ram will still have some Dodge DNA to it. Anything that’s a real, true truck is part of Ram and the Ram brand going forward.“

When asked about what elevating the Ram brand name will mean to the marketing of the pickups, he said, “That’s another area I need to delve into and figure out. I certainly can’t see us marketing a Ram Ram.” Rumor has it that Ram will position itself as designed to tow ATVs, snowmobiles and boats. Since Ford and Chevy are often promoted as being “work” trucks, Ram might be angling to be the the “sporty” truck. Rams can be sporty, right? Look at the Saint Louis Rams. Sure, 0-5 isn’t too sporty, but the season is far from over. Hopefully rams of all varieties can look forward to better days in the future.

The site where MJ got bad

by Jeffery Racheff

Two months after the iconic singer’s tragic death, the party celebrating Michael Jackson rages on. Fans are crafting homemade “Thriller” dance videos, major studios are planning films of unreleased concert footage, and cities are staging day-long Jackson-themed jubilations. In Malaysia, they even have Michael Jackson tigers. So if there ever was a time to name something after the late King of Pop, now’s the time to do it. Unless, of course, it’s a subway station. According to New York City transit officials, the junction where Jackson’s music video “Bad” was filmed will not be allowed to change its name in his honor.

In 1987, the Hoyt-Schermerhorn subway station, a moderately busy stop in downtown Brooklyn, received a visit from MJ, director Martin Scorsese and a merry band of dancers and roller-skaters. There they shot “Bad,” a glorious tough guy street dance-off complete with multizippered jackets, steam-blown hair and an endless barrage of Jackson’s trademark hip gyrations. It’s basically a plea against violence, with Jackson and his gang choosing to twirl and grab their groins rather than duke it out. Needless to say this proved overwhelming for the violent hoodlums, and they ran off defeated. Michael was victorious, and the battle-ground was hallowed.

Now, after his death this past June, fans are trying to rename this holy Hoyt-Schermerhorn after Jackson. According to one key supporter, City Councilwoman Letitia James, “his visit and moonwalk at this station was a huge deal not only for Brooklyn, but all of New York in the ’80s.” But there’s just one problem – New York Transit Authority prohibits plaques and memorials from being set up in stations. They are more than happy to accommodate sponsorship deals, but memorials aren’t part of the plan. Those don’t bring in revenue.

In other words if fans want a Jackson station, they’ll have to foot the bill. Which shouldn’t be that hard, right? With all the fans and potential donors, a decent sized pool to fund the renaming of the station could be created fairly easy. People could chip in money and turn Hoyt-Schermerhorn into a virtual underground Michael Jackson museum, with murals and glass cases filled with sequined gloves and little floor tiles that light up when you step on them. There would also be tourists, with money, both words that have to prick up the ears of transit officials.

Unfortunately, one of the biggest problems with naming bus stops or subway stations after people is the confusion it creates for riders. Hoyt-Schermerhorn station is named so because it sits directly beneath the intersection of Hoyt street and Schermerhorn street. If renamed “Michael Jackson Station” it could create a black hole for confused commuters.

There is also the possibility of a public backlash. Jackson’s erratic personal life was fodder for intense speculation and criticism, and many people found his relationships with young children more than off-putting. At the Iowa state fair this summer, organizers wanted to honor the singer by crafting a life-size statue of him made entirely out of butter. But in an online poll voters nixed the idea, expressing concern over allegations of child molestation made against him in the mid ’90s. Consequently, the buttery King of Pop wasn’t invited to the party and instead is currently moonwalking in a Des Moines freezer.

But that’s Des Moines and this is New York, where people are not likely to get lost in their own subways let alone become offended by statues made out of butter. Yes, Jackson had more than his share of scandals, imperfections and eccentricities, but the sheer impact of his star power would bring a fresh interest in this part of Brooklyn. The impersonators and performers alone would warrant a trip. So unless he turns out to be a Red Sox fan or something, Michael Jackson will most likely get his subway station. And we can all moonwalk on the platform in his honor.

Today, on Channel 9, Tommy Carlier wrote about how terrible URI aliasing is with a reference to a URI aliasing service about to go dark. This is the worst possible case: Millions of links go dark at the same time, due to a single point of failure. The nice image you see (from Wikipedia), shows the Single Point of Failure in a practical routing system – but the same principle applies to URI routing – or aliasing.

The initial response to this is: It is not just URI aliasing that is the problem, it is URI death anywhere. URI death is not just about things disappearing from the Web. It is about URIs that get renamed – or in a more abstract sense, representations that get renamed. The URIs are still there, they just don’t point to anything usable.

It then occurred to me that the URI aliasing death is an entirely fixable problem. The problem is that the URIs are aliased and then the aliasing nexus dies. Well then, let the search engines, while they’re at it (crawling the Web), capture all these aliasing mappins. Then, search providers such as Google and Microsoft (Bing) expose these aliasings via a Web service. This should work transitively as well.

Then the beautiful part. Hook up your favourite browser with the URI realiasing service from the search provider and hoopla! You have undead links. Links that simply “refuse” to die (…reminds me of Superman IV and the computer that became self-aware and refused to be shut down and started hooking into ambient power sources.)

Now the more serious problem of “representation extinction”, whereby a document simply goes offline from a site and is not aliased by some other URI, is in fact already handled bythe Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.

The simpler problem of “representation aliasing”, whereby a document is still online a site, but it has simply switched position can be handled by search providers as well.

In fact arbitrary alias failures can be handled by search providers if they hash representations at different locations. This will enable them to, at least for static content, provide locations for files which have moved – or simply seized to exist on a particular site, but does indeed exist elsewhere.

There is a potential copyright problem here, but this is not something a search engine should concern itself with. This is a “peer problem”.

Now all we need is for someone to implement this and integrate the wayback machine into the top browsers. I can live with Chrome.

Bring it!

© Barcelona 2009

The Shack keeps you connected--don't forget it. Photo: BrechtBug (flickr)

On Monday we posted an article about RadioShack which recently nicknamed itself The Shack. After a pretty sizable media/blog backlash, The Shack felt the need to defend its actions…

From AdAge: “In an interview with Ad Age, Chief Marketing Officer Lee Applbaum downplayed criticisms of the nickname. He pointed out that consumers and media are drawing conclusions before they’ve seen any of the new campaign. The company has no plans to eliminate its RadioShack moniker, and the name will remain unchanged on exterior signage at stores. Those details were not apparent based on the company’s press release, as evidenced by the media coverage the announcement received.

When asked why the company did not roll out the campaign in a way that would have avoided at least some of the confusion, Mr. Applbaum insisted that the company is “very strategic”. He said it’s difficult to “dissect any one piece” of the platform and its rollout.”

So we’re drawing conclusions before we’ve seen any of the campaign? This isn’t part of the campaign? It sure looks like it, what with the massive laptops and equally large signage. Maybe this is just how The Shack acts these days. Not to worry though, they’re very strategic. Before we know it, we’ll be singing the praises of The Shack and its new campaign. Can’t wait!

Radio Shack tries online dating or something...

by Eli Altman

So while Pizza Hut is starting to call themselves The Hut, Radio Shack is now toying with the idea of The Shack. Is it just me, or is this slowly starting to spiral out of control? Let’s take bets on when Burger King becomes The King, Wal-Mart becomes The Mart and Safeway and Subway are deadlocked in a legal battle for The Way. I know times are tight, but contrary to popular belief, cutting your name in half won’t save you any money.

To me, this whole shortening thing is a way for companies to try to distance themselves from, well… themselves. They’re becoming less descriptive about who they are in an attempt to camouflage themselves into people’s vocabularies and lives. When you say you’re going to Radio Shack, you’re going to a company to buy something. When you say you’re going to The Shack, it sounds like you could be going to any number of ubiquitous yet unique locations. The problem is, you’re still going to a large international corporation and everyone knows it. While the name might sound cute and local, the experience certainly won’t be, and this will create a disconnect.

While the concept of blending in and commodifying  your company might sound good in theory, it’s actually very hard to pull off. (I doubt Chap-Stick and Xerox did it on purpose.) For The Shack and The Hut, it comes down to the difference between what they say and what they do. Nothing about Radio Shack feels like a shack and nothing about Pizza Hut feels like a hut. There’s too much plastic and cheap carpet. Let’s not forget that huts and shacks aren’t that cool anyway. Of all places to get a pizza, would you go to a hut? No. If you were looking for a flux capacitor or some other little electronic gizmo, is that something you think you’d find in a shack? No f’ing way.

As far as Radio Shack is concerned, if I had to pick one word to play with, it would be radio, not shack. Radio is a great word. Yea, I know, people don’t listen to the radio anymore–but that’s what makes it cool. It’s just the type of thing that the electronic tinkerers who end up in Radio Shack would appreciate. Anyway, since when does trying to sound younger appeal to young people? Trying to be younger is, like, something old people do.

Along with Pizza Hut and Radio Shack, Starbucks is also trying to distance themselves from themselves with new locations in Seattle that attempt to recreate a local coffeehouse experience. While Starbucks is smart enough to change the experience along with the name, why are all these companies suddenly afraid of their own shadows? If people turn on your brand, the answer shouldn’t be to try and recreate yourself in the eyes of people who don’t like you. They’re probably really skeptical and hard to please anyway. You think people who hate Starbucks will be happy when the find out that 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea is actually a Starbucks in disguise? They’ll probably spray their macchiato all over the floor. Of course there are the people who won’t figure out they’re in a Starbucks, but these are probably people who don’t care and probably go to Starbucks anyway.

Instead of trying to change who you are by chasing research reports and the telemarketed people in them, you’re probably better served working on the core of who you are—you know, the things that made you successful in the first place. Sure, times change and you need to keep up. But these experiments seem like sheepish attempts at chasing long-gone customers that, in the end, will detract from these companies’ brands and bottom lines.

Circus "Peanuts" are now called Candy X until farther nodice.

So I was trying to get over this weird stomack thing I’ve ben dealing with lately and I went to the drugstore to get some pepto. While I was there I ran across one of my tasthy childhood memorys…Circus Peanuts. It was tempting becas it is a tasty thing to eat but I wasn’t not hungary at the time and my mom always said their not good for me. But I looked on the side of the pactage and found out they have 0 Transient fats and 0 of sodiums. Hey that’s helth food to me! So I bougt them to eat them after taking pepto and a nap.

So that’s what i did. As soon as I wake up I start to open the package and nodice on the back this writting “This product does not contain peanuts”. I was shocked,opaled and offended. I couldn’t believe that candy makers have so blaytanly mismarketing Circus “Peanuts” all this time! I figured they were at least 10% real like Nutter Buttre but not evan that.

I think the worst travisty is done to the Africand Amercians though. We learned in school that George Washintgon Carver invent the peanut. Now look how we step all over his life’s work and make something else fake to replace what he makes. It’s so unpolitclely correct that George Washington Carver probly is rolling in his coffin as we talk!

I’ve really been torn about this because this fake and tasty candy is so good but it’s so wrong to keep eating them knowing what it does to Africand american history. But I think I have a plan to solve it. I’m going to take on the huge task of renameing the circus “peanuts”  (I will call it candy X for now.) to somthing opropreate. I will also try to be a avocate for the candy X so that candy makers will get on bored with my plan. It won’t not be easy but necassary- yes.

So soon I’ll have a number of names added to a pole so you can vote and take part in fixing the Candy X name misjustice.

Y’all keep fucking w/my childhood!! You took down the Magikist Lips, renamed Comiskey Park & Marshall Fields—and now the Sears Tower?? Why is this happening?! Who the hell is gonna call it Willis?!

Sears Tower is history. As of Thursday, the iconic Chicago, Illinois, skyscraper is now named Willis Tower.

At least that’s what the owners of the 110-story skyscraper now call it after its new main tenant, the London, England-based insurance broker Willis Group Holdings. However, there are plenty of people who refuse to call it that.

More than 90,000 people have joined the group “People Against the Sears Tower Name Change,” on the social networking Web site Facebook. [SOURCE]

That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”

But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

The man asked him, “What is your name?”
“Jacob,” he answered.

Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, ^[e] because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.”

Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”
But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.

So Jacob called the place Peniel, ^[f] saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”

-Genesis 32: 22-30

In this Old Testament favorite (well, one of my favorites), Jacob wrestles with God (or an angel, messenger of God etc. Scholars differ on exactly who this “man” is but for the purpose of this entry, we’re going with the opinion that it’s God). What I find truly fascinating about this story is that God agrees; He actually takes Jacob on and lets him try his strength. When Jacob refuses to let go until God blesses him, God responds by asking Jacob’s name. I don’t think it’s because God was unaware of who He was dealing with; He knew the hairs on Jacob’s head, so obviously He knew his name. His intention wasn’t to jog His own memory about who this stubborn firecracker of a man was, but rather to rename Jacob and transform him through it.

Jacob comes from the Hebrew word that means “supplanter,” which translates to one who takes the place of another or replaces. God renames him Israel, which means “one who struggled with the divine.”

His renaming of Jacob reaffirms God’s intensely personal and unique image that he placed inside him from the start. He is no longer a replacement or a shadow of another man, but a new person, who is transformed, renewed, and resurrected by his struggles with God. Jacob’s blessing is in the fights and questions that bruise and batter us every day, in the heartbreaking, fall-to-your-knees, shake-your-fist-and-scream-at-the-heavens kind of pain that forces us to grow and change.  God could have let him win, given him whatever he wanted, and sent him on his merry way. But instead, He used his struggle to rename him, to re-identify him with who he is — one who struggles, and with God, one who overcomes.

I see much of myself in Jacob, and feel that the renamed moniker of “Israel” belongs to all of God’s children who wrestle with Him, insisting to be blessed.

I spend so much time struggling with God and too often, hold onto names that are not mine — the mantras of selfishness, control, instant gratification, greed. God wants to use these struggles to rename me, to transform me constantly, day by day, and remind me that woven within the identity of “one who struggles with the divine” is also one that overcomes. But I don’t always let Him.

We have to let go of this innate need to conquer, own, and control this struggle and instead, name it and let God’s hand reach to embrace and transform us through it.*

All that Christ stands for — peace, love, justice, truth — none of it comes without struggle. Every single thing that Jesus preached was extremely difficult to live out and asks absolutely everything of a person. His name for us comes out of the intense hardship that is following Him. I have to think that He never intended for us to be be imitations of anything or anyone other than Himself. Even knowing we would fail countless times, He still names us as victorious (for Israel also means “one who fights victoriously with  God.”)

……………….

My name, Caroline Elizabeth, means “song of happiness; little and womanly; consecrated to God.” While it’s the name that my parents gave me and perhaps is nothing theologically significant, I feel a deep sense of identity in what this says about me. When I look at this meaning, I see a reflection of who I am. A joyful, laughing, feminine song who continues to give myself up to God again and again, amidst mistakes, wounds, questions, and struggles; one who is  set apart for God’s use.

What does your name mean, and what do you think it says about you?

*A lot of seeds of thought were planted by watching Rob’s newest NOOMA, Whirlwind, which they showed a free premiere of yesterday on Flannel’s website. Just wanted to give a proper high-five where it was due.

Providence Plantation: you had to be there.

by Danny Altman, on location in New England

There are very few people outside of the state commonly known as Rhode Island who know that the state’s real name for the last 372 years has been Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. For the past few years, there has been a movement afoot in Rhode Island to eliminate the Providence Plantations part of the state’s name on the grounds that it brings back memories of the state’s role in the slave trade and makes some residents cringe.

When you’ve had a name for that long, you should probably think long and hard about changing it. Even if there were slaves in Rhode Island, which there weren’t, we question whether political correctness in the year 2009 is a good enough reason to change your name.

Today’s equivalent of Rhode Island’s role in the slave trade would be your role in child slavery in the Marianas. If you buy a polo from the Gap that was made there, one could argue that you are supporting slavery. Rhode Island imported molasses from the West Indies that was distilled into rum, which was purchased and in turn partially used to buy slaves in West Africa. It’s a distant relationship.

The full name of the state is a piece of history. When people hear it, even if they have a negative reaction at first, it’s the beginning of a very interesting story that shows that Rhode Island was an incredibly progressive place from its very beginnings, when it became a refuge for people looking for relief from religious oppression in the other colonies.

In fact, the colony passed laws abolishing witchcraft trials, imprisonment for debt, most capital punishment, and on March 18, 1652, it outlawed slavery.

Your name is a fundamental part of who you are. If you’re going to change it, you should have a really good reason. To us, an overzealous reaction to the word “plantation” isn’t a good enough reason.

This blog’s name has changed. As I have been writing mainly in English, and furthermore the concentration on news from the art, design and fashion scene in Basel have been the basis for the renaming.

I’ll keep on welcoming you on this blog. Happy reading!

They are who we thought they were. Photo: ally.com

by Danny Altman and Eli Altman

GMAC Bank pulls a fast one. On Friday, it’s GMAC. On Monday, it’s Ally with a cute purple “a.”  According to bank officials, GMAC settled on the name Ally after “extensive” interviews with customers.

Okay, we get where they’re going with this. Allies rely on each other, allies don’t let you down. Unfortunately they are under the impression that no one’s been paying attention to the news for the last six months.

We are under the impression that there is a banking crisis of staggering proportions and it seems like they are attempting to turn the page without even acknowledging the 800 pound gorilla in the living room. It’s a little like royally screwing over your friends, and instead of apologizing, you show up the next day and pretend to be best friends.

By dictionary definition, “ally” appears to fit the bill. An ally is defined as a helper or a partner. However, in the real world, ally isn’t really a consumer-friendly word. It’s generally used in conversations about war and international diplomacy, as in “the axis and the allies.”

As words, “allies” and “allied” feel substantive and are easy to understand. But the word “ally” seems caught somewhere between a bowling alley and Ally McBeal. The word makes sense literally, but relative to a friend or partner, ally connotes an arm’s length relationship which isn’t really what the bank is after.

It’s easy to understand why expunging the letters “GM” from any name is a good idea. The reality is that this is a failed bank that’s being held on life support by American taxpayers. It’s not that renaming the bank was a bad idea, but it is a bit of an amateur job.

This is probably what happened:

They got a bunch of people in a room and paid them fifty bucks apiece to discuss the world of banking over some stale donuts. The people probably said they were fed up with the dishonesty, the fees, the small print. They felt that banks weren’t acting in their best interests. They wanted someone on their side.

So they decided to pull a 180 and basically reprise the WaMu campaign which successfully pilloried bankers for being cruel and thick-headed. The only difference is, WaMu had a clean reputation when they ran the campaign–something that GMAC clearly doesn’t have. That said, it probably would have been a good idea to take this rename in a different direction.

Two-year-old (shown here making out with pig) helps investigators trace the true origin of the swine flu.

I don’t understand this Swine Flu. It’s the FLU! There are tons of people who die from the flu annually, however most people don’t even find it necessary to get vaccinated against it (even when the vaccine is readily available). It would be different it was called Swine Cancer, or Swine Head Explosion, or Swine Bird Flu.

I also heard this morning that the authorities are thinking about renaming the Swine Flu because it makes pork sound bad. The new name being considered is North American Influenza. Interesting. As a copywriter, I figured it would be nice for me to lend my services to assist them in their renaming efforts.

If you plug “Swine” into the thesaurus, you get: hog, boar, sow, porker, pig, piglet, piggy

If you plug “Flu” into the thesaurus, you get: contagion, epidemic, infection, infestation, illness

Based on these findings, I recommend they rename the Swine Flu…Porker Infestation.

by Danny Altman

Yesterday we suggested that the “swine flu” was not properly named. Well it seems that a lot of experts agree with us but they don’t necessarily agree with each other.

In a New York Times story headlined “The Naming of Swine Flu, a Curious Matter” it turns out that we were correct that this is a political football.

Officials in Thailand are calling it “Mexican flu.” Israeli government officials are also pushing this idea so ultra-Orthodox Jews don’t have to say the word “swine.” My guess is that there aren’t a lot of Mexicans in either country to offend, so that makes sense.

The World Organization for Animal Health is lobbying for “North American influenza” which lumps the Canadians, U.S. people (“Americans” properly would be anybody who lives in either North or South America), and Mexicans into one less-than-happy family.

And the Mexican ambassador to China, not to be outmaneuvered in this game of pass-the- virus, floated the idea that the disease arrived in Mexico thanks to a visitor from “Eurasia,” which he figured was a big enough area not to insult the Chinese.

Yes we could call it a day and name this the Nimby Flu, which of course stands for Not In My Back Yard. And some of the best submissions from yesterday were: Pigenza, Snoutbreak, Drafted by the Lions, the Michele Bachmann disease, and of course, The “It’s a slow news day so we’re going to scare the shit out of everyone with wildly irresponsible journalism by over-reporting on every case of flulike symptoms outbreak.”

As for us, we are sticking with the name Sex with Madonna because it is the coolest thing to say you have, but of course it brings with it some dangers of over reporting.

Just a pawn in the game.