Bad Brand Names: Bailout Edition

Not even $700 billion plus earmarks could salvage these sorry excuses for brand names:

1. I'll give Vergina the benefit of the doubt and venture that the name sounds poetic in Macedonia and Thrace, where this beer is bottled. In North America, we have a little problem. On the bright side, you could amuse your friends by serving it with a chaser of this. (Hat tip: Back of the Cereal Box.)

2. Naming a men's fragrance FullChoke requires either (a) brass cojones or (b) complete lack of access to an English-Italian dictionary. Given that the fragrance is said to be "created around the explosive notes of a gunpowder accord," I'm going with (b). On the other hand, FullChoke does sound like the perfect gift-giving solution for every jerk on your Xmas list. (Hat tip: Namer X.)

3. Don't hate actress Gwyneth Paltrow because she's beautiful. Hate her because she named her new "lifestyle" website GOOP. The site's still in its infancy; all we get is a bunch of blather about why Gwynnie's life is good (answer: "because I am not passive about it"—nope, being rich and famous has no relevance at all!). The sole web copy uses "I" eleven times and misspells "work out." So in the absence of facts, I'll create a story about the GOOP name: Ms. Paltrow took her monogram and inserted the magic oo vowels (see Google, Yahoo, et al.) that have become talismans for desperate branders. She, or her handlers, ignored the dictionary definition ("sludge; any viscous substance") and passed on words that incorporate the G-P initials while adding actual value to her "brand" (gallop, grip, glimpse, etc.). By the way, she can't even claim uniqueness: the acronym GOOP— Graphical Object Oriented Programming— is a trademark of Endevo; there's also a Goop hand cleaner and an adhesive called Amazing GOOP. (Another view: Elizabeth Renzetti of the Toronto Globe and Mail suggests that Paltrow chose GOOP because learn-from-me-ungrateful-peasant.com was already taken.)

4. I say We Olive, you say ... "in a yellow submarine." Right? Unfortunately, that's not what founders Gary and DeeDee Brown want you to associate with their retail store and franchise business, which provide "a fun and exciting place to taste Olive Oils" (capitalization sic). Personally, I'd have gone for Olive Us, which wouldn't have given rise to awkward constructions such as "About We Olive" and the poorly punctuated bad-joke tagline "We Olive, So Should You." OliveUs.com is taken, but most likely for sale. Act now! (Hat tip: my brother David.)

 

Comments

[Q. Pheevr]

"OliveUs.com is taken, but most likely for sale. Act now!"

Or, in other words, "Olive Us! Why not take Olive Us?"

[...tom...]

...
Re: FullChoke

Is not the bottle shape uhmm, somewhat phallic in shape and design..??

FullChoke: 'for the man who knows no limit.' Sounds like a bad date taken to the criminal level.

Troubling.

...tom...
.

[Lance Knobel]

It may not be a good name for the US, but it's hard to better Vergina in Macedonia. That's where the ancient Macedonian kings were buried, including Philip of Macedonia, Alexander the Great's dad.

The sun of Vergina, an image found on Philip's tomb, is the symbol of Macedonia.

All this, by the way, is a flash point between Macedonia and Greece, which even disputes Macedonia's right to be called Macedonia. That's why the country was originally, at least in official circles, FYROM -- the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

[Nancy Friedman]

@Lance: Thanks! I knew I could count on you for geopolitical context.

[Translate English Indonesian]

Nice article !

[Nikos Bilalis]

Vergina is indeed a small town in Macedonia, Greece: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vergina

As for the FYROM name dispute, that's a different story...

[daveblake]

Goop, the hand cleaner, was for decades the degreaser of preference in millions of workplaces (not just garages; I was a typesetter, and we had it). It's the origin of the eponymous "goopy", which refers now to anything of its consistency, which is sort of sour creamy, but completely non-greasy. Lots of hair products in salons get referred to as "goopy" or just "goop" for whatever the gel set is.