Every year I do a blog post on the interesting names of minor league baseball teams. Here is this year’s crop of names (all images By Source, Fair use, Wikipedia):

Chattanooga Lookouts – Naming a baseball team the Lookouts might seem odd, but Lookout Mountain is just a few miles south of the city and is a famous Civil War battle site. When the sky is clear and with a good set of binoculars you can see up to 7 different states from the summit. The Lookouts are one of the oldest teams in the league, having played in the Southern League off-and-on since 1885 and they have kept the Lookouts name the entire time.

Richmond Flying Squirrels – When the team moved to town in 2009, the Richmond Flying Squirrels name was chosen through a Richmond Times-Dispatch readers’ “name-the-team-contest.” While I am generally not a fan of naming contests, this one had a good result. Other finalist names were the Rock Hoppers, Hambones, Rhinos, Flatheads, and Hush Puppies. Fans love it too, as Richmond has one of the highest levels of merchandise sales among minor league teams.

Bowling Green Hot Rods – This name is a nod to the presence of the automotive industry in the area, which includes the National Corvette Museum, Holley Carburetor, Beech Bend Raceway, and the Bowling Green Assembly Plant. Their mascot is an anamorphic bear named Axle.

Omaha Storm Chasers – The team has been the Triple-A affiliate of the Kansas City Royals since their inception in 1969 and were originally known as the Omaha Royals. In 1998 when they joined the Pacific Coast League they were briefly known as the Omaha Golden Spikes (1999–2001) before reverting to the Royals name. They rebranded as the Storm Chasers in 2011 as a result of a fan naming contest. What else would you call a team based in Tornado Alley?

Toledo Mud Hens – Professional baseball had been played off and on in Toledo since 1883, but the Mud Hens era began in 1896 with the “Swamp Angels”, who played in the Interstate League. They played in Bay View Park, which was located near marshland inhabited by American coots, also known as “mud hens.” For this reason, the local press soon dubbed the team the “Mud Hens”—a nickname that has stuck to Toledo baseball teams for all but a few years since. The current incarnation of the Toledo Mud Hens started when an International League franchise moved to Toledo from Richmond, Virginia in 1965. The franchise became famous when Gene Cook became the general manager and got Jamie Farr to incorporate the Mud Hens in Farr’s M*A*S*H character’s background. Toledo has some of the highest sales of team merchandise in the minor leagues.

Someday I hope to be involved in a minor league baseball naming project. Put me in coach, I’m ready to play…today!

The Cleveland Indians just announced that they will change their name. The Team spokesperson suggested they would use input from the public to develop a new name. Here we go again!

Public naming contests used to be a reasonable idea. However, today naming contests quickly become an effort to come up with really stupid names, then vote those stupid names into the lead. As a reminder, Boaty McBoatface was the people’s choice in a 2016 contest to name a research ship in the U.K.

CBS Sports came up with a few options that reflect the history of the team: Cleveland Spiders, Cleveland Naps, Cleveland Blues.

Or maybe go with something more current and trendy like the Cleveland Rockers (the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is a big attraction in Cleveland).

Just don’t expect a public naming contest to generate anything positive…or else your team will be called “The Flaming Cuyahogas.”

Is almond milk really milk? It depends.

Ask anyone associated with the US Dairy Industry and the answer is a resounding NO. They’ve sued to stop names like almond milk, oat milk, or soy milk. They would prefer names like “oat drink,” “soy beverage,” and “almond-based dairy alternative.” Those names certainly do not sound appetizing to me!

Ask the producers of plant-based milks and their answer is YES.

The FDA actually has official “standards of identity” that require milk to be “the lacteal secretion, practically free from colostrum, obtained by the complete milking of one or more healthy cows.” However, the FDA refuses to enforce these regulations.

Where do you draw the line? Should fake meat products be allowed to call themselves meat? Should “vegan leather” be allowed to be called leather?

Where do you draw the line?

Every year I do a blog post on the interesting names of minor league baseball teams. How can you not love team names such as the Modesto Nuts (the A League affiliate of the Colorado Rockies) or the Montgomery Biscuits (the AA affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays)?

This year I expanded my search globally and discovered baseball team names in Japan.
And I found the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters. The idea of hams fighting was very intriguing – I mean what would their team logo design be?

Copyright Emily Wallace (http://eewallace.com/about) from the article https://www.southernfoodways.org/ham-to-ham-combat-the-tale-of-two-smithfields/

But as I researched the name I discovered it was named after Nippon Ham, a major Japanese food processing company.

By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36847341

In Japan, professional baseball teams aren’t known by the city, as in the United States (e.g., New York Yankees). They carry the names of the companies that own them. So the official name is:

• Hokkaido – the northernmost of Japan’s main islands
• Nippon-Ham – the corporate owner
• Fighters – the team nickname

As an aside, the “Fighters” nickname came from a naming contest. A female high school student submitted the winning name, arguing that one of the team’s best players had guts and therefore was a “fighter.”

Other team names in the Nippon Professional Baseball league include:
• Tokyo Yakult Swallows – Yakult is a probiotic drink
• Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks – SoftBank is a telecommunications company
• Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles – Rakuten, Inc. is an online retailing company

If you want to see how baseball team names have evolved in Japan, check out this team name history project on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/NPB/comments/4ffsa2/npb_team_name_history_project/

Could this naming format work in the US? Not really, as most Major League Baseball Teams in the US are owned by billionaires, not companies. Face it, the John Henry Red Sox or Hal Steinbrenner Yankees doesn’t have the same feeling as the Boston Red Sox or the New York Yankees.

In 2013, Burger King decided to take on McDonald’s famous French fries by launching a healthier alternative…Satisfries®. The Burger King fries were cooked in a less porous batter which resulted in less oil absorbed. This enabled Burger King to claim that Satisfries were healthier because they contained 40% less fat and 30% less calories than traditional french fries.

[Photo: Company Website]

Satisfies were more expensive than regular french fries, costing $1.89 per serving versus $1.59. Yes, it is customary for healthier items to cost more than regular items, so perhaps the higher price was expected.

Nevertheless, the product failed and was gone in less than a year. What went wrong? Was this a branding fail or a marketing fail?

As a branding expert, I first look to the name. Is Satisfries a good name or a bad name? Personally, I like the name because it combines the idea of satisfies and fries, and for me French fries are very satisfying! If the product actually delivered on a more satisfying taste, then perhaps it would have been a good name.

But from a marketing perspective, I am not sure that the name makes sense for this product. The product had a “healthier” positioning, and taste was not the focus. Pricing, while consistent for healthier items, was nearly 20% higher.

My conclusion is Satisfries is a good name in search of a good product. Apparently, Burger King agrees as they have maintained the Satisfries trademark. Maybe someday we will get French fries that live up to the name Satisfries!

One of these things is not like the other. Actually, quite a few of them are very different. But all of them claim to be “brands.” I know this because they are names of various things being sold on Amazon and yes, these names are registered in the US Trademark Office.

Illustration by The New York Times

But are they really “brands?”

Welcome to the world of “Pseudo-Brands.” You see, Amazon likes products that are branded. And some manufacturers do not want to put any effort into developing a brand name that has meaning. This is how you end up with a name like MAJCF for winter gloves. The manufacturer needs to get a name through the US Trademark Office and the easiest way to do that is to make the name non-sensical (so there are no potential trademark conflicts).

A recent New York Times article exposed this new wave of “branding.” Here is the article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/style/amazon-trademark-copyright.html

Of course, as a professional name developer, this is an affront to my core beliefs. Yes, there is extra effort in developing a great brand name that communicates meaning, and yes getting it through the US Trademark Office is often difficult. If it were easy nobody would hire me! But I can assure you, developing a real brand name is always worth it!

Pseudo-Brands only confuse. Real brands matter! Invest in your future and develop a real brand!

About two and a half years ago, Brandless was launched. The company sold “unbranded” household, personal care, baby, and pet products on the cheap and was viewed as a breakthrough in the “anti-branding” movement.

[Photo: John Sciulli/Getty Images for Brandless]

At the time it launched, I got a lot of flack from “anti-branders” who claimed that Brandless would be the downfall of traditional brands. Who needs to pay the middleman and the marketer in order to buy decent products? Who needs to invest in a brand name?

Allow me to repeat what I said back then: “BRANDS MATTER.”

The Brandless website attributes the failure to the crowded e-commerce market: “While the Brandless team set a new bar for the types of products consumers deserve and at prices they expect, the fiercely competitive direct-to-consumer market has proven unsustainable for our current business model.”

Allow me to rephrase this. Brandless failed to demonstrate proper value to consumers of their products. This is what a good brand can help do, but Brandless failed to establish itself as a quality brand that was worth trusting.

The irony is Brandless was actually a good brand name and a good business concept. However, they failed to recognize (or admit to) the power of the brand. The external validation of the concept is being delivered by competitors such as Public Goods who is doing a much better job of building a brand.

I’ll say it again…BRANDS MATTER!

For many years I’ve admired the positioning work behind the Nurofen brand of painkiller. They positioned the product as “targeted relief from pain” and had a wonderful demo that visually demonstrated how the product could target specific areas of pain.

Reckitt Benckiser had several products that addressed specific pain areas, including Nurofen Back Pain, Nurofen Period Pain, Nurofen Migraine Pain and Nurofen Tension Headache. Brilliant marketing…although it was not quite truthful.

You see, all the products contained exactly the same active ingredient in the exact same dosage. In fact, all that was different was a different package and label. And the active ingredient does not fly around and locate itself where the pain is…it works throughout the body.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission brought down the house of cards and levied a $6 million fine because the company “had profited substantially from misleading customers.”

Legally this was the right thing to do. But from a drug effectiveness standpoint, it probably was wrong. You see, the placebo effect in drugs is very high. Placebos cannot lower your cholesterol, but they can alter your perception of pain. For example, studies have shown that red pills relieve pain better than any other color. Imagine what the very specific positioning of these Nurofen products could do. Even with the same active ingredient and dose, the placebo effect ensures that your period pain would be better relieved by a specific product like Nurofen Period Pain rather than a generic ibuprofen.

I’m not suggesting that misleading consumers is a good idea. Rather, I’m acknowledging that the placebo effect exists and it can be used to imply effectiveness via very specific brand names (just please make something different in the product…not just a label!).

Have you eaten Patagonian toothfish? Ewww, right? Well, if you have eaten Chilean sea bass you have eaten Patagonian toothfish. An American fish wholesaler changed the name to make it more palatable, even though the toothfish is not related to bass and most of the fish labeled as Chilean sea bass does not come from Chile!

There is a long history of rebranding fish to make it more palatable. Here are a few more examples:

Orange roughy was originally slimehead.

Monkfish was originally goosefish.

Sea urchin (Uni on your favorite sushi restaurant’s menu) was originally whore’s eggs.

Peekytoe crab was originally mud crab.

Fish wholesalers are not the only ones who change names to change perceptions. The drug industry has been doing this for years. Urinary incontinence became “light bladder leakage.” Impotence became erectile disfunction. Changing a name changes the perceptions of the disease.

Do you have something you need to rename? We can help!