As we ladies know, shopping for a bra that fits properly requires advanced degrees in math, mechanical engineering, and patience. If it isn’t the weird size system (in the US, anyway) it’s the creepy salesman. And still we are doomed to a Sisyphean failure loop: 80 percent (or 85 percent or 99.9 percent) of women are Doing It Wrong, as we are repeatedly reminded.
So it’s encouraging to see a startup—based in Israel—dedicated to helping women find “a good bra that fits just right,” in the words of founder Orit Hashay.
If only they could have found a name that fits better than Brayola.
Cue the donkey.
The logo—nicely executed to resemble a lingerie label—does its darnedest to lift and separate the pink bra from the black yola. There are just two problems. First: Most of the time we’ll see the name in only one color. And second: In English, “-yola” is not a suffix. But “-ola” is, especially in commercial names. Its history goes back to Pianola (a mechanical piano invented in 1895 or 1896) and thence to Victrola (1905) and Crayola (1903, coined from craie, the French word for chalk, and ola from oleaginous).
And let’s not forget payola, supposedly coined from pay and Victrola and defined as the payment of cash or gifts in exchange for airtime.
Crayola, payola … Brayola. It’s really, really hard to get past a long-A sound in the first syllable.
And I wish I didn’t hear an echo of bresaola (breast-ola?), the Italian cured meat.
Brayola gets lots of love from loyalist commenters who visited a recent TechCrunch post. Good for them. But I must call it as I see it: The company name is either a cross-linguistic blunder or an attempt at humor that falls, well, flat. There’s nothing like the suggestion of bray to make you look like an ass.
If Ms. Orit Hashay had given me a call, I’d have said: “You’re in Israel, girlfriend! Name the company Bra Mitzvah!”
Bra Mitzvah - now that'd be outstanding! But let me expand on my retweet of the post: Despite trademark owners' best efforts, at least in the trademark prosecution context, the PTO does not credit applicant's assertion as to how a mark is pronounced when considering the issue of likelihood of confusion: "For purposes of the § 2(d) analysis, there is no 'correct' pronunciation of a mark because it is impossible to predict how the public will pronounce a particular mark; therefore, 'correct' pronunciation cannot be relied on to avoid a likelihood of confusion." I think that applies here insofar as I cannot imagine a way to make the US consumer pronounce BRAYOLA as any way other than rhyming with CRAYOLA.
Posted by: Jessica | February 29, 2012 at 08:55 AM
Bravo for Bra Mitzvah -- how could she pass that up?
Meanwhile, I've always been suspicious of that wrong-fit statistic the bra folks throw around. If the fitters' customers are drawn mostly from the unhappily fitted, how can they generalize from such an obviously biased sample?
Posted by: Jan Freeman | February 29, 2012 at 09:49 AM
Jan: I once did an extensive name exploration for That Big Unmentionables Company in Columbus, Ohio. They didn't use any of my names, but I still have the list. It includes Bravissima, Bravura, and a bunch of other names I'm quite fond of. (I've always liked So There for a bra line.)
Posted by: Nancy Friedman | February 29, 2012 at 09:53 AM
At the other end of the word is "Yola," which is a Web host in San Francisco, and which at least sounds better than "SynthaSite," its previous name.
Posted by: CGHill | February 29, 2012 at 07:26 PM
Heh, great post. This whole thing puts me in mind of that other great Jewish invention, the Kramer/Costanza Snr bra for men: "The Manzier" (or "The Bro" depending on which character you agree with). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZJ8Jxt9qrM
Posted by: Tom | March 01, 2012 at 04:55 AM