A funny post/review.

Snark Hunting : Naming Company Names Product Names Business Branding

Godin Plenty: Seth Godin’s follow-up to the best selling Purple Cow has hit the bookstores. Free Prize Inside is about how to create soft marketing add-ons for your product or service, like getting frequent flyer miles when you use a credit card or a “free” toy inside a Happy Meal. The names of his two latest books demonstrate a sense of naming much evolved since the release of his Survival Is Not Enough: Zooming, Evolution, and the Future of Your Company.

The name “Free Prize Inside” works on multiple levels, the key to generating powerful audience engagement. Also emerging, whether consciously or not, is a Godin Naming Architecture. A naming architecture is a set of parameters that govern the naming of future products. A naming architecture can be as simple as Ford’s “begins with ‘e'” strategy of naming its SUVs — Escape, Explorer, Expedition, Excursion — Or it can be more evocative, hence more effective, like what seems to be emerging from Godin’s dome.

Classically, you need three like-minded examples in a row to suss out the naming architecture strategy being rolled out. So at this point it is too early to conclude that the rule guiding the titles Purple Cow and Free Prize Inside is: “Could also be names for a Victoria’s Secret underwear line.” If, for instance, the next title is Nut Case, the rule would be “Could also be names for a Victoria’s Secret OR Calvin Klein underwear line.”