Four: More money is spent in explaining the origin of a name.

If a name cannot simply relate to the business and requires constant explanation of its obscure, yet cute, origin and how it fits overall to the business, then it becomes a daily routine for advertising to educate the universe of this dysfunctionality. The poor consumer, the lost end-user, and the over-burdened population of the world at large, doesn’t really care what the name means to a corporation, rather simply what it means to them. Corporations and ad agencies thrive on getting awards for their creative efforts and advertising gimmicks for pushing their side of the story, while the consumer simply shuts off.

Five: Corporation does not own a trademark with an identical dot.com.

When a corporation does not legally own a brand name then what’s the point of the exercise? Why bother at all? Every time your name is advertised it simply helps the industry at large and your competitors. Also, you don’t build any brand values or equities and your entire advertising and marketing dollar is wasted. Today, a large majority of brand names are not trademarkable globally and most do not have an identical dot.com domain.

Six: Name is embarrassing in certain countries.

Globalization is a fact of life. A name must work like a marketing weapon, not only in it’s own country but also around the globe. There is no need to hide under the desk because the name is embarrassing or profane in a foreign language. A large majority of names today do not work efficiently on the international scene and cause an ongoing stress in gaining recognition on the international scene.

Seven: Name is too long, too difficult, too confusing, too complicated or too boring.

When a name is too long it gets initialized. This unwanted process changes the entire meaning and lists the name in strange categories. When a name is too difficult, confusing or boring it becomes a different animal to different people. Strange name combinations, due to M&A, end up telling more than one story and causes confusion in the market place. Weird terminologies, alphanumeric structures, using upper or lower cases, dashes or slashes and other dingbat characters in a name will only ensure its self-destruction.

Have a single identity. Don't try to confuse the marketplace by offering too many faces or too many ideas in a single moniker. This can seriously blur the image of a corporation and a great deal of advertising ends up being wasted in harnessing the marketplace. Different strokes for different folks is the wrong way to build a corporate image.

Be precise, clear and definitive about your corporate name; it needs to last a long time.

Current status. Make sure your name is current because old-fashioned names do not convey ongoing evolutions and new technologies. A name might have been established a long time ago, but may not stand up to today's net-savvy cyber-branding realities.

Be a star. It is better to be a flashlight, than a matchstick. Why, for instance, waste time in advertising and telling consumers how to spell and pronounce a name? It should be clear right from the start. Don't waste your money educating the universe on how cute the origin of the name is either. Customers can't be bothered with such minutiae.

Freedom to travel. A name should be able to travel around the globe without any difficulties of global translations, foreign obscenities and other language problems. Think locally, but name globally.

Pride and joy. Take pride in your final decision and introduce your new name to the globe with confidence. Watch how competitors are embarrassed having to explain confusion and the dysfunctionality of their names as a result.

Rightful ownership. If you don't own a trademark with an identical domain name, then what's the point of the exercise? You might as well write a blank check to your competition.

Deloitte, spends 40 million to become Braxton , a name they picked up from the past so that the future can be their judge. KPMG also kicks in 40 million to be re-named to BearingPoint. Their challenge is now to unite 16,000 bright consultants under this difficult term on the global scene before they reach their breaking point. When two complicated ideas like 'bearing' and 'point' are combined they will only become initialized as BP, because it’s only the fickle and lazy public at large which decides what to think of a name and what to call it and no amount of money will ever change their mind … In the meanwhile, the real BP, which is British Petroleum, is trying very hard to shed the ‘British only’ image by re-inventing as BP as in "Beyond Petroleum" one of their short-lived campaigns. We are not amused. BearingPoint’s symbol is not BP rather it’s BE. Pity. Lastly, Anderson, before their demise also spent 160 million on Accenture, a name suggested by their employees. So be nice to your employees who know one day they may end up naming your corporate destiny.

This fancy colorful makeover of the worlds top four consulting companies, plus a 300 million budget for four new names, has certainly guaranteed them a chapter in branding history. While the ad agencies collect their design awards the army of consultants get ready to fight for their corporate identity.

The new laws of Corporate Image clearly point to the failure of the traditional Corporate Identity practice, whereby, logo, design and specific color schemes were everything and the name, only one of the components. Today, under the new laws, names are everything while other paraphernalia is certainly lost in the crowd. A name is what a corporation needs, to talk about, remember, type, chat, refer, call, praise or curse. While the logos, designs and colors you forget and do not call for, in these cyber driven economies they have lost their value ... today everyone is forced to TYPE … better remember the name and better remember the spelling … better like it or click on to the next one. Welcome to global e-commerce.

One hour on the net and you go through enough logos, artworks and design equal to the entire work of all the logo shops in the whole world created during the last century … as business gets more complex, search-ability of a name becomes ever so critical. Under the new laws of corporate image, its all in the name, stupid.

Here are 7 steps to measure the life of a Corporate Image

1. Name is lost in the crowd for being similar or identical to thousands of others. Names borrowed from a dictionary, or part of everyday lingo, never achieve distinction and despite extraordinary expense they will simply die out of exhaustion.
   
   
2. Name is too old fashioned to convey today’s dynamics.
   
   
3. When the spelling of a name requires a higher IQ. Weird spellings are used to avoid trademark problems or to fit the creativity of a spinning logo. This only ensures obscurity. Spell it four different ways, and it will only bring 25% of the hits or profits.
   
   
4. More money is spent in explaining the origin of the name. Why advertise to educate the universe of this name dysfunctionality. Customers only care about their perceptions - they don’t care about your cute story.
   
   
5. Corporation does not own a trademark or an identical domain name. Why bother?
   
   
6. Name is embarrassing in certain countries.
   
   
7. Name is too long, too difficult, too confusing, too complicated or simply, too boring. Using lower cases, dashes or slashes and other dingbat characters in a name, will only ensure its self-destruction.

So, are we are out of names? Hell no. This is only a myth, successfully established by ad agencies and logo shops, leaving clients with often silly names. Naming is a serious black and white exercise and should not be confused with color design, logos, and holistic branding campaigns, because today these components have very limited value. Naming is naming, which is when a name has been selected under the proven and established guidance of a master naming architect.

Voodoo accounting is hurting us all; voodoo branding is hurting agencies. Now is the time to get serious about corporate names.

Companies that specialise in selling web domain names reported strong initial demand for Asian language website names last week.

Register.com , a US-based company, said it had received thousands of applications, both from Asia and from the US.

But some attendees at the annual meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers said introducing Asian-language domain names now could prove disruptive to an increasingly-overburdened domain name system, as well as being confusing for users.

That could lead to misdirected e-mail, disappearing websites, and more. "Too many technologies are confusing. It could cause a big mess,” said Qian Hualin, deputy director of the China Network Information Center, the semi-governmental group which oversees web addresses in China ending in ".cn.”

CNNIC has also launched a similar service letting people register websites in Chinese language. This service in effect offer a competing system that allows the whole address, including the suffix, to be written using no English. — Reuters

The Chinese government, along with the Internet Society, a US-based non-profit group, criticised the introduction of VeriSign's multilingual service.

The Internet Society put out a strongly worded statement, calling VeriSign's current testing "premature under the technical standards of the internet” and asking it to delay its launch until its engineering group works out compatibility standards.

That's a charge that security software maker VeriSign, which entered the web domain business when it bought Network Solutions earlier this year for $20bn, disputes.

The Internet Society's "concerns are not warranted,” said Brian O'Shaughnessy, a spokesman for VeriSign.

He acknowledged that VeriSign's technical infrastructure allowing domain names to be translated back and forth between English and other languages was still buggy, but said the system would be glitch-free by its expected launch by year end.

"We don't want to hurt the net in any way,” he said. "No e-mails will get lost.”

What's at stake are millions — if not billions — in dollars of revenue from the increasingly-lucrative business of signing up websites. For instance, sales of domain names and related services made up an estimated half of VeriSign's $173.1m in revenue in its third quarter ended September 30.

Besides web addresses that end in country codes, such as ".uk” for the UK, there are currently seven top-level domain names. But ICANN's board of directors this week will rule on the addition of a number of new Web domains. Proposed ones include .kids , .geo , .xxx and others.

Critics say those possible new domain names, along with the just-introduced multilingual domain names, highlights VeriSign and ICANN's inadequate policies to prevent cybersquatters — people who buy up website names in the hopes of auctioning them off later for high prices.

"First come and first serve is the wrong way to approach it,” said Naseem Javed, an expert on corporate trademarks and branding. Creating new foreign language domain names will "multiply the problem.”

A Perfectly Good Day Became a Laughingstock
Dictionary words fail as corporate names, as did Pricewaterhouse Coopers when it became MONDAY. While the company was in a state of shock and a laughingstock in the world media, it was picked up at a basement bargain price of $3.5 billion by IBM. The Big Blue. The name MONDAY was dropped. Only a year ago PWC was offered $12 billon by Hewlett Packard. Can a name really add so much damage? Sure.

The colors of the rainbow are not so pretty as in the sky.
" What Can BROWN Do For You Today?" BROWN is a new calling device for UPS, the United Parcel Service, which employs 350,000 brown-clad personnel, running around in brown trucks. Despite a $45 million campaign, BROWN is still struggling to provide a meaningful message to the use of this peculiar name. 'BROWN makes me happy.' Really?

Pepsi's Version of '2000 Flushes'
Recently, Pepsi introduced a blue-colored soft drink in a Pepsi bottle called PepsiBlue, maybe as a counter-attack to Coke's Vanilla, a dark-colored Coke with vanilla flavor. Unfortunately to some, PepsiBlue looks more like Windex or 2000 Flushes. Marketing of blue fluids has often been associated with sanitation products, even when it comes to mouthwashes, like Clorox and Listerine in Blue, etc. Where is the BLUE ketchup these days, now that Heinz's GREEN ketchup is in the kitchen?

Yellow is considered for the soft at heart and the timid, but then there are the useful YELLOW PAGES. Also YELLOW FREIGHT, a gigantic freight company of strong men on the superhighways. Call YELLOW, they must be so mellow. Who knows?

Green thoughts are often for money, grass, and vegetables. And sometimes for The GHOSTBUSTERS or THE GREEN PARTY, which is for the environment and flushed with green money.

Henry Isn’t a Green Blochhead
H&R Block, the tax preparing giant, is now clinging to a green block as their image and their exclusive color. Perhaps they want be recognized as a Green Bloch [sic]. Henry Bloch correctly picked the name of his company as H&R Block to avoid spelling and pronunciation problems. When he appeared as a spokesperson, using his correct name caused confusion. To correct the whole thing, he simply changed his company's name to Block. Well done, Mr. Bloch. The consumer thanks you for that easy spelling.

Use of color as a name or to identify a corporation is far too stretched. The customer at large is somewhat color-blind to these branding tactics, already recovering from the awkward, dumb, and, at times, obscene names from the wild branding era of the last dotcom bubble. PurpleFrog; PurpleDog; PurpleRhino; all the way to BlueFrog, BlueDog; BlueRhino, etc., etc.

These poor animals were subjected to verbal abuse and named in just about every color of the rainbow. Perhaps this dotcom lesson will end the so-called voodoo branding and possibly avert a strike at the local zoo.

Naming Is More Serious Than a First-Grader's Box of Crayolas
Naming of a corporation is a very serious business and can no longer be left to a color palette. The customer cannot be motivated to a branding surge by coming across a specific color. Imagine every time you come in contact with the color brown: Wouldn't you prefer to think of a chocolate bar, rather than calling UPS or hugging one of their delivery guys on the road? Every time you see green do you really think of money, IRS, or just grass?

If naming corporations by color is really that important, then perhaps a lot of corporations should simply be called RED; red in embarrassment, blushing, or simply for bleeding too much red ink. PINK, if cleared by SEC, and ROSY, if on the rebound.

A Campaign to 'Save the Colors'
Colors are most important for packaging and logo design. Unfortunately they are a limited few and part of our daily life. Therefore, it's dumb to imagine that a single color exclusively identifies a specific corporation.

Logos and big color schemes are the things of the past today. In this e-commerce age, everyone is forced to TYPE and to remember the names with absolutely correct spellings; no one really cares about the logos or colors anymore, just the names. Ad agencies are only hurting themselves with their old-fashioned one-side-painted advice. They must reconverge and regroup their thinking.

In summary, the Corporate ID shops should stop peddling such tacky crafts. Ask them how and why they have run out of naming ideas. Look for professionally executed naming methodologies and search for "masters of naming" architects. There is no shortage of unique, powerful, global names; what is short is the naming expertise.
The time has come to leave the pretty rainbows in the sky alone.

Moderator Comment: How important is a retailer's company name in communicating a distinct market identity?

There are numerous CPG companies and retailers that should consider a name change based on Mr. Javed's criteria. [George Anderson - Moderator]

Comments

I'm a firm believer that names carry power. A well-chosen brand name may have both a cognitive and an emotional impact upon consumer perceptions. As retail chains grow and prosper, a brand that may have been acceptable in a local market may appear ill-chosen in the context of the larger stage.

Large companies sometimes change their names at significant expense -- think back to Esso's transformation into Exxon. Consistent or evolutionary visual imagery, logos or slogans can help the consumer track the transition without confusion, preserving brand equity.

Finally, this is an instance where it pays to advertise: Tell the consumer what you are about to change; tell them when you change it; and remind them afterwards that it has been changed. [James Tenser - RW Commentators]

While some companies certainly should change their names, having helped with two corporate and two trade association name changes, I can tell you this is no easy task. First there is the creation of the new name. Then there is the planning and execution of the name change program. This process covers everything from creating logos and tag lines to developing a detailed media plan. Then you sort of sit and wait to see if it takes. Ultimately, they almost always do, but the program's success is measured in the time it takes for people to stop calling the company by the old name. [Ron Margulis - RW Commentators]

As a PR consultant for the retail sector, I can tell based on my experience that maybe a name is not so directly connected to it´s "distinct market identity". I think it is the combination between services and pricing policy through the company's history that will build the image of a supermarket chain in the public's mind. There are local cases in my home country (Argentina) that prove so. For instance, "disco" that is the abbreviation of "distribuidora de comestibles" (food distributor) - and by the way a recently Ahold acquisition - has built an image of quality and services despite the pricing policy and it's name has nothing to do with it. Another case is "Coto" which is the surname of the owner of the company and has no relation with being cheap or expensive. The image of being a cheap place for buying food is based on the pricing policy that they've been practicing for the last 25 years. I hope I made my point. [Romina Paciarotti - BrainTrust]

All the wisdom above notwithstanding, what's in a name? If I owned a company today, I would love to call it Wal-Mart. [Gene Hoffman - BrainTrust]

This should be one of the toughest decisions that a company makes. Its also one of the most expensive decisions that any company can make. Taking a decision like this lightly or on a whim from a Marketing Consultant can be costly and damaging.

Inevitably when a customer becomes familiar with a name, they continue to refer to the company as such even when a name is changed. I still call my bank by its original name even though its been changed three times. The same holds true with my cellular phone company which has transformed names at a lightening pace. Hospitals have had many name transitions as well, and the communities still refer to them by their original names no matter how many changes. Its interesting as the old names never appear anywhere in print or signs, just in the vernacular.

Diamler-Chrysler performed the most miraculous name change I have ever seen. Street signs, trucks, plant signs, etc. All done on the exact day of the completion of the takeover! However, who calls their Mini-Van a Diamler? No one!

Names have real geographic and community significance. They are what create loyalty in the first place. They build reputations, and hold lost reputations as well. Thus the phrase, "I'll stake my name on it".

Be careful with your name. It may be the only thing you have that creates real identity and brings your customers through the doors. [Scanner]

There are many reasons to consider name changes and a raft of "identity specialists" have cropped up, creating a little cottage industry for naming.

Sometimes, translations force name changes. A beverage like Sierra Mist has a lovely connotation in the U.S., but not so in Germany where mist means manure. The same goes for the Chinese company whose name translated into White Elephant Auto Parts. The list goes on.

But this is not a decision to be made lightly. For one thing, the cost of a name change can run from $100,000 into the millions. Additionally, brand names, even bad ones, have a certain brand equity which can easily be lost. In fact, some industry insiders believe that Philip Morris' attempt to distance itself from Big Tobacco by changing its name to Altria may have created some negative feelings among consumers due to the transparency of the move.

On the plus side, name changes are often embraced by Wall Street as a sign that a company has bigger fish to fry and that new strategic endeavors are in the offing.

In the end, don't put your trust in consumer focus groups. As someone told me recently: "you're putting the future of your brand in the hands of people who give up their time for $45 and stale sandwich." [Len Lewis - BrainTrust]

Retail operations are identified with their geographic location and a change of ownership or name change has to fight that position in the local customers' minds. My favorite example: a spot on a busy main drag, along the Jersey shore. Names and ownership of a particular corner bar/restaurant changed like the tides of seasonal shore traffic. The one that finally took hold and has prospered their now for many seasons..."Used To Be's Tavern". [Rick Moss - RW Commentators]

Much of the publicity surrounding name changes is derived from mockery of the new name, astonishment at the amount of money spent to implement that change and bemusement that it was thought necessary in the first place. Examples that instantly spring to mind - Arthur Andersen's consulting division became Accenture, PriceWaterhouseCoopers (just before they decided to sell it to IBM) had decided to call their consultancy arm Monday. A certain American conglomerate that wanted to distance itself from its tobacco history is another. One of our mobile phone companies has re-christened itself O2. There are loads more. In all of those cases, I think the company name was very important both before and after and there were probably good reasons for changing. But one which I am anxiously watching is a new company over here, Ocado, which is a joint venture between the John Lewis Partnership, whose grocery arm is called Waitrose, and a logistics company whose name I can't even remember. Considering that Ocado is in direct competition with Tesco and Sainsbury, and hopes to grab much of their customer base as it rolls out nationwide, it seems to me that they really should have used the Waitrose name which is well known and highly respected. Sacrificing it so that they don't overwhelm their lesser known partner seems, from an outside perspective, to be a little bit too altruistic. As a Waitrose, and grocery e-commerce fan, I would like to see Ocado succeed and hope that they are right and I am wrong. I think the company name really does matter.

Andersen is already a ghost, for which Henry Traill, the biographer of Sir John Franklin, might have composed his lines, "My name is used-to-was; I am also called played-out and done-to-death, and it-will-wash-no-more.”

On the Accenture Web site there is no mention of antecedents, the place they came from. This wasn't changed in the wake of the World Trade Center tragedy. It has been that way from Accenture's debut for the simple reason that when a company picks a new name it puts all its energy into making that name come alive. All its energy and a lot of money. Accenture estimates it has spent $170 million to establish identity and global acceptance for its new name. With that much on the line, it doesn't want to look back.

Accenture may be a poster for name change but there's no shortage of me-tooers.

"Never in the history of business has there been such a rush for new corporate identities as we have seen in the latest rounds of mergers and acquisitions, IPOs and dot-com startups,” says Naseem Javed, who runs ABC Namebank out of Toronto and New York.

Javed has helped Telus, Celestica, Intrigna, Intria CIBC, Pollara and Vincor find new identities. And it's no cinch as his all-in fee of between $20,000 and $200,000 attests. It's all-in because for the money he guarantees to deliver an original, trademarkable, domain registrable, globally acceptable and appropriate corporate name. It's no cinch because, as Accenture found out, "98 per cent of the words in a typical English dictionary have already been registered as dot-com domains” and in today's world a corporate name without domain rights is a non-starter. An average of more than 80,000 domain names are registered every day.

It is the fool corporation that ventures into this morass without good reason. Nevertheless 2,000 public companies changed their names in the first half of 2001, half of them in the U.S. Sometimes there's no alternative. When Sir Terry Matthews decided last year to reclaim the first of the trophies he had pawned when times were rough, he bought back only half of Mitel, leaving the other half to find a new name.

The brandstorming that ensued got somewhere between 1,000 and 1,500 suggestions from consultants and employees. "It was a challenging exercise,” says Jacques Guerette, VP marketing. "It has become increasingly difficult because a lot of companies have banked names or are squatting on domain URLs. The trend is to construct a name rather than look for an existing word that would be suitable. The idea is to combine words or syllables that connote the essential qualities of the company. In our case we were left with the semiconductor business and our focus was on connectivity.”

To get from connectivity to link might seem like a walk in the park but in fact it took six months and in the end required a call to the consummate name dripper, Javed. He put "link” together with a syllable he vows is derived from Caesar, which in turn speaks of leadership, power. The company bought it. Zarlink hopes that people who matter will understand that it means "leader in connectivity.”

This is daunting ambition in a world of raging competition for name recognition. It was not until I visited Accenture's Web site in preparing this column that I learned its name means "putting an accent on the future, just as the firm focuses on helping its clients create their future.” Prior to this research, I could have guessed it speaks of "accelerated ventures” or "access to dentures.” That $170 million was wasted on me.

According to Naseem Javed, author of a book called Naming For Power - Creating Successful Names For The Business World, most corporate names fit into the following four categories:

• Surnames: using family names as corporate identifiers
• Geographic names: using municipal, regional or other general geographic denominators
• Descriptive/dictionary names: using words plucked from a dictionary or using a descriptive phrase
• Coined names: using an amalgamation of the names of two merging companies or a made-up name.

Global management and technology consulting organisation Andersen Consulting is one UK company which recently changed its corporate identity. On 1 January this year it became Accenture.

Joe W Forehand, managing partner and chief executive officer of Accenture, explained: "We are a very different organisation today than we were when we formed Andersen Consulting in 1989, so adopting a new brand and identity is a logical next step in our growth strategy.''

Accenture is a coined name, combining the words accent with future, aiming to convey the message that the company will focus on helping its clients create their future. The name was submitted by Kim Petersen, a business consultant working for Andersen Consulting in Norway.

Accenture was selected after an intensive three-month research and analysis process involving thousands of candidate names. A short-list of 50 names was evaluated globally for trademark and website availability, possible cultural sensitivities and local market pronunciation.

The entire naming process - from conception, analysis and research to final name selection - was completed in what is believed to be a record time of fewer than three months. Typically, a project of this size and global scope would usually take far longer.

The initiative was led by Andersen Consulting's global marketing team and supported by the international branding and identity firm, Landor Associates, as well as law firms in more than 49 countries who conducted the 3,000 required trademark searches.

In choosing the name, every effort was made to tap into the creativity of the people who knew the firm best - its 65,000 employees. Under a company-wide initiative called BrandStorming, employees from 42 countries submitted 2,677 names for consideration.

Mr Forehand added: "Not only was Accenture created by one of our people, it turned out to be the name our 2,500 partners preferred more than two to one over any other candidate.''

So when should a company consider changing its name?

According to Holly Roff, an expert in corporate identity development: ''For an established firm, your identity depends on factors such as age. For example if your company looks like something left over from the 1980s, now's the time to change.

''Benchmark your identity with that of your competitors or new entrants into your marketplace. A good rule of thumb is to refresh your look every five years. If a company has recently merged or acquired another, it is important to go with the company that has the stronger brand name and presence in the market.''

British Gas is the trading name still shared by two companies demerged in 1997. The commercial activities of British Gas were spun off as a separate business named Centrica (created from the word centric: having a specific centre or core), and the British Gas Corporation renamed itself BG plc, retaining responsibility for technical production, exploration and international development of the UK gas industry.

Quick to exploit its commercial freedom, Centrica has added many services to its portfolio, most recently the UK's Automobile Association acquired for 1.1 billion pounds sterling in 1999.

Another firm, Corus (thought to be from coruscate: to throw off flashes of light), came into existence in October 1999, and is the result of a merger between British Steel and Koninklijke Hoogovens of the Netherlands, creating a metals company which combines international expertise with local service.

The headquarters are in London, with 23 business units located across the globe. At the end of June 2000, there were 63,900 employees worldwide.

A Corus spokesman said: "It was not easy to leave behind our former names as we are, and we remain, proud of our heritage. Both British Steel and Koninklijke Hoogovens have distinguished pasts.''

Diageo, a made-up word, is the revised company name of one of the world's foremost drinks business. It was formed in 1997 through the merger of Grand Metropolitan and Guinness that spawned a global giant with annual sales of 12 billion pounds sterling.

The group has an outstanding portfolio of well-known drinks brands including Smirnoff, Johnnie Walker, J&B, Gordon's and the world-famous Guinness stout.

Paul Walsh, group chief executive for Diageo, said: "No company has a better platform for growth. No company has better brands. We will seize the opportunity to grow the world's leading beverage alcohol business. Diageo's future is based on three key words: focus, innovation and growth.''

The latest corporate name change in the UK will take place on 26 March when the Post Office becomes a public company and changes its name to Consignia.

The recognised names of Royal Mail, Parcelforce Worldwide and Post Office branches will stay the same but these names, according to the Post Office, "were not felt to reflect our customer's unique global distribution needs.''

Chief executive John Roberts said: "The new name describes the full scope of what the Post Office does in a way that the words 'post' and 'office' cannot. 'To consign' means 'to entrust to the care of' - which is what each of our customers does every day, no matter which of our services they use.''

The challenge is to differentiate themselves as many of their products take on commodity-like characteristics, particularly with the growth of direct selling over the Internet. Insurance aggregators, such as Internet-based Quotesmith.com, InsWeb and Quicken Insuremarket, allow consumers to obtain quotes from among dozens of insurance companies. The aggregators are also beginning to offer property/casualty and group benefits for small businesses.

Brand names will be the primary tool consumers use to differentiate products online, said George Johnson, vice president of communications and marketing for Safeco Insurance Cos., Seattle, which started its branding campaign two years ago. "Consumers need something to attach themselves to," he said.

David F. D’Alessandro, president and chief operating officer of Boston-based John Hancock Financial Services Inc., says high-quality brands give the insurance aggregators’ sites credibility. "We sold over 15,000 policies via the Internet last year and have been the No. 1 brand on Quotesmith," he said.

The reasons insurers are embracing branding extend well beyond the ability to sell personal-lines products over the Internet. When St. Paul merged with USF&G in 1998 and shed its personal-lines business the following year, the company was forced to redefine itself in a commercial market long suffering from low pricing and intense competition for business.

St. Paul chose Bruce Martin, a consumer-products marketing veteran, to lead the first branding campaign in its 146-year history. Martin’s challenge was to create a brand identity that differentiated St. Paul in the commercial-lines market. Martin previously worked on enhancing the brands of such well-known products as Downy fabric softener and Ivory soap at Proctor & Gamble.

"The industry continues to slide into the track where all products are alike. We have to do something to get customers to think that we’re better than the competition," said Martin, vice president of corporate marketing.

In developing St. Paul’s branding campaign, Martin found commitment at the top. Chairman Douglas W. Leatherdale views the campaign as a long-term investment to make St. Paul more competitive, Martin said. "The support from such a high level is extremely important; if you don’t have it, the campaign is just a marketing thrust." In turn, the promise the brand makes to the public also must be backed by the company’s commitment. "The brand has to match up with how the company is run," he said.

To find the one attribute that could be the underpinning for a $20 million ad campaign, Martin used qualitative and quantitative research, including phone interviews and focus groups, to determine St. Paul’s brand awareness with consumers.

St. Paul discovered that trust was the attribute that differentiated it from the rest of commercial insurance sellers to its target audience of independent agents and brokers and risk managers. Campbell Mithun Esty, a national marketing agency, was hired to create two 30-second commercials to underscore that message. In "Rhino," the ad that kicked off the campaign, a young girl stands unflinchingly while a 4,500-pound rhino races toward her. The rhino comes to a dramatic stop inches from the girl, then stands still as she gives the beast a kiss. A voiceover says, "Trust is not being afraid even if you’re vulnerable."

After an initial burst of the ads last year, St. Paul will rerun them in the second quarter on network and cable television, particularly golf telecasts. Then it’s back to the phones to measure the effectiveness of the campaign. After this second-quarter push, the insurer will measure its name recognition by asking, "When you think of a property/casualty company, who do you think of?" and, "When you think of St. Paul, what comes to mind?"

Martin’s goal this year is for half the people surveyed to mention St. Paul first.

As insurers broaden their reach in the financial-services arena, several are changing their names to emphasize their broader role.

Aetna Inc. recently named its two restructured business units Global Health and Global Financial Services. Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. has adopted Mass Mutual Financial Group as its brand name. John Hancock Financial Services Inc. is the new name for John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co. Many insurers are leaving behind old-fashioned terms like assurance, cooperative and mutual to appear more dynamic and aggressive, said Naseem Javed, president of ABC Namebank, a New York-based company that specializes in corporate identities. "As they cross the century, they would like to be seen as more highly sophisticated e-commerce entities than as 17th-century monumental-type buildings with high columns and traditional names," he said.

Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co., which bills itself as "The Quiet Company," hasn’t abandoned the traditional columns, and its name change is rather subtle.

After 18 months of research with its agents’ field force and consumers, Northwestern Mutual discovered that although it had high consumer recognition for life insurance, when it came to investment products, respondents most often thought of Merrill Lynch, said spokeswoman Deanna Tillisch. "We have to let consumers know we offer annuity and investment products, too."

Effective this summer, Northwestern Mutual’s distribution system will be known as the Northwestern Mutual Financial Network, and its master brand will be Northwestern Mutual.

"We’re concentrating on the strength of our name," said James D. Ericson, Northwestern Mutual’s chief executive officer.

Image Makeover

Nationwide’s branding strategy was a dramatic departure from its past. Nationwide saw immediate results from a new branding campaign that included a name change from Nationwide Insurance Enterprise and discontinuing a 45-year-old logo. Since the campaign started in September with the company’s first national advertising campaign, brand awareness is up 6%, and the company has measured a 4% increase in "likeability" among consumers.

Nationwide spent $21.2 million on advertising in the first 11 months of 1999, up from $14.8 million for the same period a year earlier.

In launching its branding campaign, Nationwide Chairman and CEO Dimon R. McFerson said technology, globalization and consolidation in the insurance and financial-services industries were forcing players to home in more effectively on customer needs. The campaign was designed to communicate how Nationwide was changing.

In the past few years, Nationwide added distribution channels and acquired Iowa-based Allied Group and California-based CalFarm Insurance Co., giving the company a national presence.

Nationwide is the fourth-largest auto and homeowners insurer based on net premiums written in 1998 and the 12th-largest life insurer based on assets. In the auto market, it is sandwiched between No. 3 Farmers Insurance Group and No. 5 Progressive. Its market share has remained at 4% since 1996, and it gained only 2.4% in premiums in 1998, according to A.M. Best Co. data. The auto insurers that spent the most for advertising were Allstate, the second-largest auto writer, and Geico Corp., the sixth largest. Allstate spent $175.6 million in 1998 and Geico spent $139.2 million, according to Auto Insurance Report.

Nationwide considers the financial-services industry a more formidable competitor than property/casualty insurers. "The banks and brokers are well financed and can afford to buy lots of advertising," said Steve Johnston, vice president of advertising and brand management.

Besides modifying its name, Nationwide dropped its eagle logo in favor of a blue frame that highlights different customers. "We learned through research that not only did they see Nationwide as monolithic and unapproachable, but as far as our trademark, they asked: ‘What about me?’" Johnston said.

By humanizing the logo into a "living logo," the focus goes back to the customer, he said. Nationwide’s new commercials center on vignettes about how the company can serve clients during various life events. The vignettes are portrayed inside the blue frame.

Nationwide also had to withstand internal skepticism about changing the name and logo. "We had to overcome a 45-year history with our logo and make everyone understand why were doing this," Johnston said.

One agent had the Nationwide eagle tattooed on his leg. "He came up to me at a conference in Hawaii and asked me, ‘What are you doing?’ " Johnston said. "He now has a frame logo on the same leg."

Olympic Effort
Protecting the brand "is important first and foremost," said John Hancock’s D’Alessandro, whose book on the subject, Branding Warfare, will be published by McGraw Hill. Last year, John Hancock backed away from advertising during this summer’s Olympic games in Sydney, Australia, after a bribery scandal involving the Olympic Committee was uncovered. This year, D’Alessandro negotiated a first-of-its-kind ethics clause into its renewal of Olympic sponsorship. "We said if there was any negative spillover into our brand we wanted to be able to leave," he said.

In addition to sponsoring the Olympics, John Hancock signed a multimillion-dollar, five-year deal to be an official sponsor of Major League Baseball. The agreement is the largest and longest sponsorship in Major League Baseball history and grants John Hancock exclusive rights to the financial-services category, which includes insurance, annuities, investments and pensions.

The deal puts John Hancock in the same category of Major League Baseball sponsors as Gillette, MasterCard and Pepsi-Cola, said Derrick Johnson, a league spokesman.

"We believe in the power of Major League Baseball," D’Alessandro said. "Its value to John Hancock as a marketing co-branding tool is enormous."

Betting on Sports
Safeco turned to the branding consultant Interbrand to help it craft a branding initiative two years ago after acquiring Indianapolis-based American States. Its mix of 60% personal lines and 40% commercial combined with its mutual funds and annuities made it a competitor in the national financial-services arena. In 1998, Safeco was the seventh-largest writer of homeowners insurance with a 2.3% market share and was No. 11 in private-passenger auto with a 1.5% market share, according to A.M. Best Co. data.

During the makeover, Safeco modernized its logo from a shield to an "S." "Successful brands improve customer loyalty, bring referrals and even help the stock price," said George Johnson, Safeco’s vice president of corporate marketing and communications.

The first move was to buy the naming rights to the new Seattle Mariners ballpark. Paying $1.8 million per year for 20 years, Johnson saw it as a bargain compared with the cost of $2 million per 30-second spot for Super Bowl advertising. "The ballpark projects our name nationally and is a powerful marketing device," Johnson said.

Safeco also is considering switching from Cole & Weber, the advertising agency it has used since 1975. "We already saw a big change in name recognition because of Safeco Field, and we want to jump off of that," Johnson said. Safeco put its account up for review, targeting 2001 for the completion of the new $7 million-plus campaign. "That campaign has to take the increased visibility from Safeco Field and inject branding that strategically supports all our initiatives--e-business, insurance, investments, everything," he said.

Meanwhile, Safeco’s current TV commercial, which began the branding process, will continue to run in key markets. Safeco likes to advertise in spot markets nationally, integrating local agents’ names at the end of the commercial. But for now, Johnson said, he is looking for a new media plan—one that prompts "Aha! A brand breakthrough!"

Javed was a pioneer when he focused on the corporate naming business 22 years ago. While advertising agencies and marketing companies often came up with company names as part of a larger campaign, ABC Namebank was one of the first companies to specialize exclusively in the name game.

Domain and dot-com company names can be valuable assets. But most of the time, they're not, Javed says.

"Ninety per cent of corporate names are in the process of chipping away at company assets," he says.

Why the nominal crisis?

"There's a general misconception that we are all out of names, that we're only left with zodiac signs, major rivers and reptiles," he says.

"There is no shortage of names."

The problem is that people naming companies have no formal training and precious little experience on the naming front. They're left to focus groups, lists of suggestions from groups of employees, and blind guessing. And that's led to billions of dollars' worth of brand manouevring around those names.

"Amateurs have no place in naming today. Those days are over," he says.

Generics — like business.com — are an attractive alternative to a branding campaign that makes $1 million a letter look like petty cash, says Javed.

But how effective will such names be when the majority of users aren't new to the Web and have more sophisticated keyword capabilities and experience using them?

"Fast-forward five years," says Adam Sherwin, executive director of New York-based Happy Media Inc.

"Take away the dot-com, and you have no brand. Even Business Etc. would have a better chance.

"A memorable, powerful, intuitive, creative brand name will always have the advantage over a generic equivalent."

More to the point, though, is that even seasoned executives can believe a great domain name is a substitute for a business plan or a revenue model. Sometimes, that seven-figure domain name comprises most of a company's assets, and is often "the only thing like an idea they've got."

"A Web site does not a company make, and it certainly does not a viable business make."

Generics can be valuable, says Sherwin, especially to the online presences of brick-and-mortar retailers (dot-bams).

"For example, WalMart could attract a significant number of clients to its online pharmacy store by setting up a domain name such as flu.com," he says.

(Flu.com is one of almost 100 generic domain names Procter & Gamble has amassed over the years, and is selling through GreatDomains.com. Among the others: beautiful.com, cleans.com, sensual.com, romantic.com, scent.com and thirst.com.)

But a Web-based company has different needs for its domain name, says Sherwin. Take, for example, Happy Media itself.

Founded in 1996, Happy Media operated out of Sherwin's living room until earlier this year. Customers don't stumble across Happy Media in the street, or pop by the office — they contact the company over the Web.

But the company has developed a network of services, each of which requires its own touch point to avoid alienating customers.

Happy Media handles small business and individual branding and naming clients through its DomainSmith brand. Its GreatServers brand is aimed at the high-end hosting market. If a client comes to Happy Media for the former and gets the latter, she's not going to want to do business.

"These two brands represent closely related parts of the same process, but by branding them individually, the company can access customers in an efficient, targeted fashion," he says.

The corporate and online identities are "two sides of the coin," Javed says, and a clever domain name that can't be fully leveraged is worthless. "Without the trademark, you have nothing," says Javed. What's left of cocacola.com or sony.com without the brand power of the corporate identity?

"All you're left with is metal or sugar and junk of no value," he says.

And, of course, Javed has words for boo.com, the dot-com retailer that burned through $130 million (US) in six months before closing its doors: "Take a look at your stupid name. What were you trying to achieve?"

He slots boo.com among the Yahoo!-inspired trend of "moronic names."

"Sugar-coated branding tricks," he dismisses them. "They never work."

For instance, in China, many popular websites are named after significant number combinations. One of China's most popular websites is an eBay-type auction site called 8848.net. The number 8848 is a play on the height of Mount Everest in meters and the lucky number eight, which sounds like prosperity in Chinese.

Web addresses were generally limited to the 26 letters of the English alphabet, numerals zero through nine, and the hyphen. With VeriSign's system, the multilingual addresses are still half in English, using the final ".com" or ".gov" suffix.

About two dozen companies and nonprofit organizations submitted domain names for ICANN's consideration earlier this year. They paid $50,000 for each application, with the payoff being the right to manage the domain in the event that it is approved.

ICANN's staff judged the submissions based on criteria like need and financial backing. Many of the applicants were criticized for being inexperienced and lacking the necessary technical capabilities to succeed.

One of the most high profile domains that ICANN's staff passed over was .kids, for children's Web sites. They wrote that choosing which Web sites are appropriate for children is too cumbersome.

ICANN's staff also recommended against .xxx, for adult content. They said that pornographic material is ``readily available on the Internet'' and that the domain ``does not appear to satisfy any unmet needs.''

If new domain names are approved, they would not go into use until at least mid- 2001. They would be the first general suffixes to be adopted since the original ones, .com, .net and .org, in the 1980s.

Naseem Javed, frequent ICANN critic and president of ABC Namebank International, a brand name consulting company, opposed the organization's limiting of domain names. He says that the group should open up all domains for registration.

``You cannot let one group like travel have a domain, but not a group like hotels,'' Javed said.

The rise and fall of dot-com names may be compared to the overuse of words like "data," "process" and "info" in previous decades, says Naseem Javed, a New York-based corporate naming consultant. "Those names lasted two or three years before they died out in the late '70s," he says. "Now the word 'data' evokes images of old computers and punch cards."

Javed estimates that there is a company that changes its name every minute, whether it's to modernize or to signal a merger. The assumption is, however, that companies that change their names must incur greater marketing expenses to introduce a new brand. Steven Hamerslag, chief executive of the newly named j2 Global, concedes that the company plans to hike marketing spending. "The great news is that on the Web it's pretty easy to redirect our existing customer base to the new domain," Hamerslag says.

For About, this is the second name change in three years. Launched as The Mining Co. in 1997, it changed its name to About.com in 1999, until just a few months ago, when it changed again. The first name change cost about $12 million, according to John Caplan, the company's senior vice president of marketing. "We found that in 45 days, About.com eclipsed The Mining Co. in brand awareness," says Caplan.

Of the nearly 50 companies that filed for IPOs in August, several companies' names included the word "Wireless" or "Communications," but there wasn't a single dot-com in the bunch.

That doesn't mean there aren't a few brave companies left: Nearly 15 companies with dot-com names expect to price their IPOs in September.

But money talks, so the prices of dot-com IPOs may speak for themselves.