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Branding Case Study: Disney

Even if your company isn’t as ambitious as a media conglomerate, there are still many good business ideas to learn from when looking at the success of companies like Disney. After all, a mega company like Disney is made, not born. You have to start somewhere, and those who rise to the top obviously had…

Branding Case Study: Playboy

The good news about starting a business is that you’re not the first one to do it. Many companies have come before you and left behind a trail of mistakes to avoid, lessons to learn, and great business ideas that you can glean insight from. The ways that successful companies have approached branding can be…

Naming My Business 101

Businesses are like poems; the person who creates them often saves the naming process until the end. Like inspiring language, great business ideas come when they will, and most people decide to go with the creative flow before addressing the matter of what a company should be called. Even so, from a marketing perspective, the…

California — cool since 1510

As far as state names go, California is the black sheep of America. Rather than some stale, obligatory honor to a founding father, a lazy attempt to replicate somewhere in England or a halfhearted remembrance of a decimated Indian nation, “California” is a dream. It represents not what was found or what died here, but…

Come to Office Hours

Stuck in a naming rut? Perfect timing. We spend the majority of our waking hours naming things, so we thought it would be nice to reach out and help those of you in naming need. We can’t work with everyone who comes our way, but we wanted to open up a little time to help…

Love at first sight

Love at first sight can be a pretty thrilling experience. One moment you’re locking eyes while feeling for ripe fruit at the supermarket, and the next you’re cuddling together in the checkout line planning your honeymoon. Yet for all its romance and adventure, love at first sight is also a dangerous affair. After all, who is this person? What if they never actually liked fruit and…

100M fights fire with beauty

Jill and Burt Kohler were facing a scary legal battle at the end of 2011 for using the name Kohler Academy. They decided the best move forward would be to get some professional help in order to start 2012 on solid ground. We guided them through our naming process until we had a name that…

Glory Holes, and other terrible names to give your donut shop

Bad names are everywhere. From the corner store to the corner office, people find themselves giving terrible names to the things they love, and no one seems to be able to stop them from doing it. Well, um, stop it. We’re tired of seeing neat things with lame names. That’s why we’ve set up an…

naming-matchbox

Matchbox

Steve Marcus is a Boston venture capitalist who went to the other side. He sits on the admissions committee for the Sloan School at MIT–and saw how crazy the admissions process was from the inside. You know how you fill out all the applications on a computer? Well, it all winds up in paper files…

Finders keepers, sort of. How to name your new species.

Any person who discovers a new species has the right to choose its scientific name, and to party as best as scientists can. After the celebrations, it’s time to find a name for that new fern you found. I’m sorry to say that My Little Ferny isn’t going to pass the test. Rules stipulate that you…

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