Fritinancy

Brands of the decade: 2010–2019

Ten years ago, when social media and blogging were still new and a rational person was in the White House, I did something ambitious and presumptuous: I published a list of the Brands of the Decade.*

And now it’s time to do it again.

To qualify for my highly subjective top-12 list, a brand had to meet these guidelines:

• Founded during the second decade of the 21st century or shortly before or
• Had a significant impact on the way we do business or live our lives during this decade or
• Consistently made headlines during the decade (for better or worse).

Because I’m a name developer, I gave a little extra weight to brands with interesting or influential names.

A message to sticklers: Yes, I know that actually a decade begins in a year ending in 1, not 0. SORRY.

In alphabetical order, then:

November linkfest

The wildfires have barely been extinguished here in California, but it’s already word-of-the-year season across the pond, where three prominent dictionaries chose words or phrases with a common theme: climate change, or preventing it. Cambridge Dictionary went first, with upcycling: “the activity of making new furniture, objects, etc. out of old or used things or waste material.” Collins Dictionary chose climate strike: “a protest demanding action on climate change.” And Oxford Dictionaries picked climate emergency from an all-environmental shortlist that included “climate action,” “climate denial,” “eco-anxiety,” “extinction” and “flight shame.”

Let the record show that lexicographer Jane Solomon, recently of Dictionary.com, spotted the trend back in September.

So @OxfordWords picked ‘climate emergency’ for their 2019 Word of the year. And @CollinsDict picked ‘climate strike.’

In September I suggested ‘climate crisis.’

Clearly lexicographers are all on the same page about this. https://t.co/75klqC7c6e

— 〰️Jane Solomon〰️ (@janesolomon) November 20, 2019

*

Kosher (for Passover) cannabis

Years ago, long before California legalized cannabis, I knew a pair of Jewish Deadheads whose Passover table always included “sweet herb” (wink, wink) along with the traditional bitter herb. (Or so they said. They never invited me to their seder.) I’ve lost touch with them, but if they’re still observing the ritual, I bet they’re plotzing over this year’s convergence of 4/20—the equivalent of St. Cannabis’ Day—and the first day of Passover. It’s like Thanksgivukkah, but for stoners. Call it Weed-Over, if you must. (The coinage belongs to Arielle Kaplan, a writer for Alma, the new-ish Jewish publication “for ladies with chutzpah.”)

So: How best to honor the occasion? Is cannabis kosher? Is cannabis kosher for Passover? Are we going to be asking 420 questions instead of the traditional four?

To the last question I say: Isn’t the seder already punishingly long? As for the others, here’s what I’ve dug up.

Name in the wild: Blunts+Moore

Now that the sale, possession, and use of recreational cannabis have been legal in California for a full year, what’s happening with weed branding? Well, cannabis ads are still outlawed on San Francisco’s Muni buses, streetcars, and cable cars. On the other hand, I’ve been noticing a lot of outdoor advertising in strategic locations around the Bay Area: big, bold billboards near freeway on-ramps and bridges. Some are for companies that were founded before full legalization took effect on January 1, 2018, like Eaze (a delivery service) and Weedmaps (“a community where businesses and consumers can search and discover cannabis products, become educated on all things cannabis, review cannabis businesses and connect with other like-minded users”).

But one new brand caught my attention when I saw it on a billboard on the Oakland side of the Bay Bridge: Blunts+Moore. Merely descriptive was my first thought. After all, blunt has been a slang term for “marijuana cigarette” for at least 30 years; the Random House Dictionary of Historical Slang connects it to Phillies Blunt*, a trademark in use since 1958 for a brand of inexpensive cigars.

But wait: there’s more. And also Moore.

May linkfest

Hotels.com registered the longest URL in internet history “to prove it has more than hotels.” (Adweek)

*

“One very recent scandal in immigration politics in Britain was, improbably, named after a ship that sank decades ago.” (Lingua Franca) .

*

Kim Kardashian’s decision to name her new lingerie line “Kimono Intimates” has provoked charges of cultural appropriation. But all Jezebel – and I – could think of was a 30-year-old condom brand.

 

Word of the week: Blockchain

If you’re just a tiny bit aware of blockchain, it’s probably thanks to Bitcoin, the peer-to-peer virtual currency introduced in January 2009 and rising sensationally, if erratically, in value ever since. (On November 25 a single bitcoin was worth US$8,770.) Bitcoin was made possible through blockchain technology, which, put as simply as possible, is a linked and cryptographically secured list of transactions.

Blockchain – also known as advanced digital ledger technology, or ADLT – makes obvious sense for currency. But it’s much more than the core component of a quirky monetary system with an enigmatic inventor. “Simply put,” The Economist explained in an October 31, 2015, article, “it is a machine for creating trust.” And that means blockchain’s potential for secure transactions of many kinds is seemingly limitless. In fact, “blockchain for X” is fast becoming the new “Uber for X.”

Chart via PwC.

 

How Serra got its name

Recreational cannabis has been sold legally in Oregon since October 1, 2015; since January 1, 2017, dispensaries have been required to apply for and receive licenses from the Oregon Liquor Control Commission. In early January, the Portland Business Journal reported* that the OLCC had received 1,907 recreational marijuana license applications in 2016, and that the total number of licensed retailers had more than doubled in 2016, from 99 to 260.**

One of those green rush beneficiaries is Serra, which opened its first store in Portland in 2016 and which now operates a second Portland store as well as one in Eugene, home of the University of Oregon.

 

Logo design and application by Thomas C. Bradley for Official Mfg. Co., Portland.

 

The stores have been praised for their high-end aesthetics (“The most sophisticated cannabis dispensary in the city, if not the country.” – Wallpaper. “When you leave Serra, the feeling is similar to leaving Anthropologie: slightly numbed by the curated beauty of the place, a sense of being underdressed, but without the guilt of paying too much for something you'll ruin in one smoke sesh” – the Potlander, which is not a typo). And the verbal identity is similarly bar-raising: no “leaf” pun, no 420 variation, no “green,” no “bud,” no “Mary Jane.” 

But where does “Serra” come from, and what does it mean?

Nicely named: Gateway

What’s so special about “Gateway”? Not much, at first appraisal. The word appears in more than 600 trademarks, including that of a pioneering U.S. computer company founded in 1985 in Sioux City, Iowa. (That company, whose original name was Gateway 2000, used a Holstein cow as its mascot; it was bought in 2007 by Taiwan-based Acer, which also acquired Gateway.com and which now produces computers under the Gateway brand.)

“Gateway” names abound in the San Francisco Bay Area thanks to the region’s association with the Golden Gate and the bridge that spans it. There are Gateway apartments, a Gateway Bank, a Golden Gateway hotel, and a long-planned Gateway Park at the foot of (confusingly) the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge.

But the Gateway I want to praise here is Oakland-based Gateway Incubator, which is named for a different sort of gateway.

January Linkfest

The ABC Family network, stigmatized by that F-word in its name, now calls itself Freeform. Network president Tom Ascheim told the Television Critics Association that the new name “not only elicits the moment of transition in the medium and a sense of ‘creativity’ and ‘spontaneity’ but also evokes [a] younger 14 to 34-year-old audience, whom he’s dubbed ‘becomers’.” So much to ponder in that single sentence. (Hollywood Reporter)

As for the Freeform logo, Brand New dismisses it as “atrocious in either its stacked or horizontal form.”

 

Name in the News: Marvina

This week a San Francisco startup, Marvina, launched its subscription delivery service for medical marijuana. For $95, $175, or $325 a month, San Franciscans who are qualified under California’s Compassionate Use Act can receive 7, 14, or 28 “top-shelf” grams of cannabis, tastefully packaged and delivered to their doors by an employee of a medical-marijuana dispensary.  

 

“Co-founder Dane Pieri came up with the idea because he was intimidated and overwhelmed by the cannabis dispensaries,” writes reporter Zara Stone in OZY.* “‘It’s like when you’re in the grocery store at the wine aisle; we didn’t know what to do,’ he told OZY. He thought he’d create a service where choice wasn’t in the equation.”

And the name? Here’s the story on the Marvina About page:

What does Marvina mean?

Nothing. Well actually its [sic] a nod to Malvina Reynolds, one of our favorite songwriters. Her song Little Boxes was also the theme song of one of our favorite TV shows, Weeds. (Ok, when we talk about Weeds we really mean seasons 1-3 because the other seasons really don't compare to those first three. If you're a fan of the show you know what we mean.)

For those of you unfamiliar with Malvina Reynolds (1900-1978), here’s a brief bio. Her birth surname was Milder; she was anything but. Here she is singing “Little Boxes.”

“Weeds,” of course, was Showtime’s long-running series about a housewife named Nancy (which also happens to be the name of Malvina Reynolds’s daughter) who starts selling marijuana after her husband’s premature death leaves her family in dire straits. The name of the fictional community in which Nancy lives, Agrestic, has been adopted by a marijuana dispensary in Corvallis, Oregon.

Marvina is an elegant portmanteau**—mar from marijuana and vina from Malvina—that stands out amid the ticky-tacky clutter of similar-sounding names in this area (see my post on 420 names). The Malvina Reynolds connection has extra resonance for a service that delivers its product in “little boxes.”

Speaking of weedy names, I’m headed to Portland, Oregon, for the next several days to attend the annual meeting of the American Name Society and sister organizations. On Saturday afternoon I’ll be giving a talk at ANS titled “Velvet Elvis at the Mary Mart: The New Normal Nomenclature of Legal Cannabis.” I hope to see some of you at my session – or maybe at the American Dialect Society’s Word of the Year vote Friday afternoon.

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* Sorry, I don’t know how OZY got its name. Look on their works, ye mighty, and despair?

** The company’s writing style, as we’ve seen, is less elegant.