Naming Clement

Brands! Lights! Camera! Placement!

An avid film aficionado, Branding Comes Early in Filmmaking Process combines two of my most favorite subjects in an expose of how brand placement is influencing every interaction within a film long before the establishing shot:

For the moviegoer, the shift will mean that advertising will become more integral to the movie. The change may not be obvious at first, but the devil is going to wear a lot more Prada.

Manufacturers can stipulate that a clothing label must be tried on “in a positive manner,” or candy or hamburgers have to be eaten “judiciously.” A liquor company might sponsor a film only if there is no underage drinking or if the bar where its product is served is chic rather than seedy.

It seems to this reader we have a terrific first draft for a sequel to The Player.

From Aster to (Drug Name) Assessment?

From Medical Marketing & Media, Matthew Arnold reports that Pfizer is partnering with Sermo, Epocrates and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston in an experiment with electronic medical records and mobile technology to detect and report adverse events.

A collaboration with Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital, codenamed “Aster (Adverse drug event Spontaneous Triggered Event Reporting),” uses automated prompts in the hospital's computer system to encourage adverse event reporting – when, for example, a doctor changes the dosage of a drug. That data is then automatically passed on to FDA and the companies. The system also collects more information about a patient's background in order to make it easier to determine whether an adverse event was caused by a drug or some other factor.

Pfizer has also placed a “contact manufacturer” button on Epocrates' mobile reference app, used by 275,000 physicians, which allows them to contact Pfizer's medical affairs department directly, via phone or email, to ask questions about Pfizer products.

Perhaps the day when industry can apply the same technology to assess proposed pharmaceutical drug names is not too far behind. Recalling my experience as a member of the brand name creation and assessment team for Pfizer's Chantix, the power of tapping into the insight of 275,000 physicians pre-name selection is an idea whose time has come.

From S60 to Gāng zhuān in sixty seconds?

Autotopia is reaching out to the net to rename the former Volvo model lineup now that the company has been purchased by Volvo: 

The new models are going to need some new names, though, and that’s where you come in. With the help of your knowledge of Chinese or Google Translate (and apologies to our friends who actually speak a Chinese dialect), we want you to submit your predictions for new Volvo model names. We’ll offer a few examples of renamed Volvo models from the past to get you started:

The squared-off 7- and 9-series cars could become known as Gāng zhuān — “steel brick.” The 240 could be rechristened Jiàoshòu chuān huāní, or “professor wearing tweed” — though we’re pretty sure the “Free Tibet” bumperstickers would have to come off.

Your turn. Rename the Volvo model lineup. Use the Reddit widget you’ll find after the jump to submit your suggestions and vote for your fave. The winner gets a prize of some kind pulled from the Autopia closet. And please — correct our Chinese if we screwed something up.

Ladies and gentlemen, start your keyboards!

iPad Trademark Resolved: Money Changes Everything

The initial confusion over Apple's ability to secure ownership of the iPad trademark, given the Fujitsu filing for the same name in 2003, has been resolved in Cupertino's favor. According to USPTO records, the transfer was completed on March 17th, just in the nick of time for the highly anticipated launch of the iPad on April 3rd. Since Apple has not publicly announced the terms of the agreement, as they did once their dispute with Cisco for ownership of the iPhone trademark was resolved, one can only wonder just how much of the $50 billion in Apple's cash reserves may have changed hands. Apple aficionados can now begin scouring the interwebs for potential names to grace the next iPhone. Sources in the know are already spreading rumors of a summer launch, and on Verizon, no less.

Urbanic? New TM Registrations = New Product Lines for BMW

By way of Scott at German Auto Car and BimmerFile, news of new trademark registrations fuels the collective imagination of Bimmer fans worldwide, myself included:

"For starters BMW will be creating two entirely new lines of products: the  'i' and 'e' line-up. It's assumed that E (as in E1, E3 and so on) will be BMW's range of electric vehicles that could correspond with their existing line-up. The 'i' nomenclature will likely be the official name of the iSetta megacity range of small cars. Expect i1, i3 and so on."

For those brave enough to advance beyond the usual alpha and numeric luxury car nomenclature, you can get your fill of Urbanic after the jump to BimmerFile.

Adobe's Content-Aware Fill? Hmm. How About Strange Magic?

With the impending launch of Adobe's Creative Suite 5 scheduled for April 12th, the net is beginning to fill with news of enticements to upgrade, including a new plug-in for Photoshop named content-aware fill. To quote one post-demo comment, "The photographer in me is crying. This is simultaneously awesome and deeply deeply disturbing." Take a peek at this sneak peek posted to YouTube and tell me if a less descriptive/more suggestive name would have been far more appropriate: 

Strange, and somewhat unsettling, magic, indeed. I'm sure ELO would approve. 

In Praise of Ray

"Whatever its origins, the @ appeared on the keyboard of the first typewriter, the American Underwood, in 1885 and was used, mostly in accounting documents, as shorthand for “at the rate of.” It remained an obscure keyboard character until 1971 when an American programmer, Raymond Tomlinson, added it to the address of the first e-mail message to be sent from one computer to another."

Congratulations now that the Museum of Modern Art in New York has deemed it to be such an important example of design that the @ has been officially admitted to its architecture and design collection.

For Prius, Where It Rains, It Pours

A proverbial monsoon of negative news for beleaguered auto maker Toyota continues with the following report from The Hindu Business Line via Autoblog: 

In an apparent setback to Japanese auto giant Toyota, the Delhi High Court (HC) has dismissed its petition seeking exclusivity over the ‘PRIUS’ trademark of its hybrid cars after observing that it is not monopoly of the company in India.

Dismissing the plea seeking an order to restrain Prius Auto Industries from using the similar trademark, Justice Ms Indermeet Kaur held that Toyota failed to produce evidence against the Delhi-based firm. The court also raised question on Toyota for approaching it six years after Prius Auto Industries got its trademark registered and started its sales.

“Why Toyota slept over the matter and idled over it for a long period,” the court said, observing Prius Auto Industries has grown into a big company having bulk supply order from auto leaders such as General Motors, Hyundai and Mahindra and Mahindra.

As an aside, while the phrase "When It Rains, It Pours" is now universally associated with events that are decidedly downbeat, its genesis was borne of an upbeat scientific breakthrough.

Racy Piracy

Use of the word 'piracy' to describe online copyright infringement is well established. In fact, it has been embraced by the so-called pirates themselves, which is the subject of Nate Anderson's report in Ars Technica:

Some of those concerned about online copyright infringement now realize that they may have created a monster by using the term "piracy." This week, at the unveiling of a new study for the International Chamber of Commerce which argued that 1.2 million jobs could be lost in Europe as a result of copyright infringement by 2015, the head of the International Actors' Federation lamented the term. "We should change the word piracy," she said at a press conference. "To me, piracy is something adventurous, it makes you think about Johnny Depp. We all want to be a bit like Johnny Depp. But we're talking about a criminal act. We're talking about making it impossible to make a living from what you do."

Translation: we should have chosen a less-sexy term.

+ We all want to be a bit like Johnny Depp.

The Nexus (One) of the Crisis

The widespread reporting of the USPTO's rejection of the Nexus One trademark application submitted by Google has converged with the news of dismal sales numbers for the flagship device for the Android platform. It begs the question why a number of Silicon Valley's leading tech companies including Apple and Palm are so challenged by the combination of good naming practices and trademark due diligence. Regardless, all three companies deserve praise for attempting to create a name to distinguish their innovation as opposed to the latest from Redmond.

Pharmerging: Now More Than Ever

The argument for multi-national pharmaceutical companies to adopt or accelerate a global-centric brand philosophy is clearly outlined in today's IMS Health report and as reported in the New York Time's article by Natasha Singer:

"Next year, the report predicted, drug sales in China will outpace those of France and of Germany, while Brazil will be buying more medications than Britain."

Hats off to IMS for its prominent use of the term 'Pharmerging' in the title of their study, illustrating the power of new language to draw attention and create interest.