Paul McEwan

A Social Media Company using social media to help name their business. Brilliant. You have until midnight tonight to cast your vote!  If you go to http://www.thinware.ca/brandstorm/ you’ll read about the contest to help come up with their name for a business which  provides affordable social media marketing implementation. This is a business I could see my own clients using as added value.

The names on the short list are Nine Point Ten, So Me Go, Ping Media, Brandstorm Media, Nitrogen Media.

At this point any of these names would probably work. “Twitter” is the silliest name around and look what’s happening. Although I must point out the Twitter name is why many still don’t take it seriously which in turn makes it a ‘cool kids’ hang out thus pushing the brand forward – so what do I know?

Google, Yahoo, Twitter; silly but powerful names all and this is where I would put SoMeGo (making it one word like Intel and the many others not coming to mind on this holiday morning)

I voted for Ping Media but I wonder if that was correct now. It needs the descriptive “Media” to even become trademarked because Ping is a word already. My reason for the vote is that as the word “Ping” becomes a more household name, so will the business name. However, this can go in the opposite direction if the word ‘Ping’ is replaced and becomes dated.

Becoming dated is a risk for all trendy names if branding doesn’t have time to take effect.

Nine Point Ten is a phrase/sentence. Although I loved the idea, it’s implementation seems awkward. Like the Band The Wonders spelling the name The Oneders. It was always being pronounced wrong. Someone pointed out 6S and I’ll bring up Projet7 and Section3 but they are all unmistakable and easy. The biggest brands have the smallest, quickest names to remember unless it’s a partnership of names like Cowie and Fox.

Brandstorm will, all by itself and with no explanation, relate to the most people at once. A single word that is as descriptive as a sentence. It even sounds strong.

But then, what do I know? As ZeFrank points out, Milton Bradley is the most un-fun name but they make board games.