There has been a lot of banter about the name of Apple’s latest electronic gizmo, most of it centered on associations with feminine hygiene products and all of it burdened with the searing insight junior high boys bring to the topic of menstruation. Naming is perhaps the most difficult product and process to go through with a client, believe me, regardless of industry. Yet when it is done properly, and the product or service actually delivers, the name loses all the previous associations and connotations with its word or words.
Let’s take an easy example from the world of consumer retail. No one in their right mind would name a chain of stores after a repressive form of government in which a corrupt elite conspires with foreign business interests to ruthlessly rule a country for the sole purpose of extracting profit. Yet very few clothing shoppers would say that’s what Banana Republic stands for today.
When a product or service succeeds in its industry, its name—like Banana Republic—sloughs off all its prior meaning and takes on the shape of the product itself. Unless, of course, there are legal implications.
The non-feminine hygiene responses to the naming of Apple’s iPad are the truly significant ones. Brad Stone, writing in the New York Times on January 29th, notes that Fujitsu already sells a product named iPad in the US and a Swiss semiconductor firm owns the iPad trademark in Europe and MagTek out of southern California makes a portable magnetic card reader with the same name. Those are serious objections to any name.
Years ago I had a small start-up client at my agency with a handheld electronic organizer that needed a name, identity, packaging, and all the associated materials for a launch. We came up with dozens of names—including Jeeves, later used by others—but the start-up crew went with one of their own devising, one several of us within the agency felt had a not-so-hot sexual connotation. But despite the vague male masturbation reference, PalmPilot went ahead as the name. Until the company was contacted by lawyers from the Pilot pen company of France.
We repeatedly asked the founders to reconsider the name. They felt confident they would succeed in any legal challenge because they had the start-up gods on their side. That belief ran smack into the harsh reality of copyright and trademark law, since the PalmPilot as originally configured was indeed a pen-based electronic device. Shortly thereafter the PalmPilot became simply Palm. Oops.
I wish Apple all the best with the iPad, even though I once had a 7 minute interview for a marketing position with Steve Jobs in which it became rapidly obvious he would rather deal with gum on the bottom of his running shoe than speak further with me, but in my long experience with naming products ego never trumps the truly blind and severely unforgiving nature of trademark law.
–Timothy Cohrs
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