The Hindu plays it safe.

After agonising over the matter, till the eleventh hour, ‘The Hindu – India’s national newspaper’ seems to have decided it’s better to milk its existing equity rather than create a whole new native brand for the Tamil market.

The launch of ‘தி இந்து’ is a happy moment for Tamil Nadu but from a branding angle it’s rather unimaginative, limiting and utterly ambitionless.

The Suppans and Kuppans in the pattis and thottis of our state refer to the Hindu as the ‘Hindu paper’. Certainly not ‘Thee Indu’. Even ‘Tamil Hindu’ wouldn’t have been a bad idea. But ‘Thee Indu’ reeks of the transliteration mind-set that most North Indian brands have.

Let’s face it. ‘Thee Indu’ doesn’t sound like a patchai tamizhan brand. Neither does it sound too Peter-ish. The name falls between two stools and ends up looking like a Higgins Bhagavathar queuing up for a Dravidian fancy dress contest.

Thankfully for ‘Thee Indu’, it has an Asokan (an Ananda Vikatan veteran) helming it. That’s the silver lining really. Otherwise, the name gives an impression that ‘Thee Indu’ must be ‘The Hindu’ created with Google Tamil Translator.

My sympathies are with Asokan and team. Now they have the ‘left leaning, play it safe’ baggage of The Hindu to carry when they write with passion.

The only ones rejoicing must be competitors like Dina Thanthi, Dina Malar, Dinakaran and Dina Mani. Because they know in their heart of hearts that now they have nothing to fear. ‘Thee Indu’ is no competition.

It will remain a niche newspaper targeting Tamilians who vote for the Congress and BJP, and have Mani Ratnam, Crazy Mohan, Subramanian Swamy and other upper middle class Tamil icons as their idols. I am hoping they prove me wrong.

Why 'Recession' is better than 'Depression'

Names are words. (Duh!) For a name to be impactful, the word representing it must make all the right noises, if you know what I mean. And if you don't, here's what: In the thirties, after the Great Depression of '29, people didn't want to hear the sound of the 'D' word, preferably, ever again. So, they came up with a new, kinder, more compassionate sounding one: Recession. Any economic downturn in the years that followed the big 'D' came to be termed as a 'Recession'. Essentially, recession became a euphemism for depression.

That said, the Great Depression is not the only reason people prefer recession, the sound of it, also, helps soften the blow. Or at least it did, back then. Now, though, we're in a time where some of us could do with a euphemism for the big 'R'. Whatever softer sounding word we go for, it'll help to arrive at the appropriate one once we have understood why people prefer the sound of 'recession' to 'depression'. Here's a thumb rule to acquaint yourself with and apply on all words/terms in the 'bad news' space.

The explanation, in short: Recession has two 'hard sounds' less than 'Depression'. Think about how useful this kind of 'tongue-walking-on-eggshells' becomes, literally and metaphorically, when you're looking for the right words (or word) to break the bad news. Recession, from the linguistic, oral and word navigation points-of-view, was easier to handle than 'depression'. (Just say it, softly.)

Next thing you know, we'll have a euphemism for 'recession'? (Don't we, already?) Whatever the people who decide these things proclaim it should be, we think for it to work, it'll have to drop the 'sion'. Any ideas on what the next recession will be called? Anyone for 'Hiccup'? It has no soft sounds but sounds less sombre than 'recession'. Sadly, a hiccup is too short to be seriously considered as a contender for the title of 'euphemism for recession'.

How about 'slowdown'? Ok.

Probably the best family of names. Ever

Orissa is now 'Odisha'

For more reasons than one, this is a better name. For one, it's easier to spell. For two, the 'd' in the middle gives it a nice point of emphasis stronger than the earlier 'r' and for three, 'Odisha' is how the people of Odisha pronounce 'Orissa'. So it makes sense. (Names are more memorable when spelled the way they sound. ex: Orissa v/s Odisha.) Incidentally, Oriya is now 'Odia', which in my opinion is not as memorable as 'Oriya'. (It's complicated and can be explained only in an elaborate Powerpoint presentation.) All said and done, what do names, and name-changes, like Odisha, Chennai, Kolkata, Thiruvananthapuram and Mumbai say about the principles of naming? Think about it.

Wave, it doesn't matter

I believe what you call a new brand doesn't count all that much when it is already backed by an old one with high equity and recall. Case in point: Wave from Google. In such cases, more than the name of the new product what matters, more than earlier, is the quality of the newly-launched product from the old stable. If, for example, Wave turns out to be shit, Brand Google takes a beating. On the other hand, had Google chosen to call 'Wave' 'Siht' and gone on to deliver yet another great product, 'Siht' would, in all likelihood, be hailed as a revolution in naming. (Sorta like 'FCUK'). That's how much names matter. Or not. Btw, don't you just love the 'Wave' logo? I do.

A surname that may not work in Chennai

Tavadia is a parsi surname. Tha-waad-dia is how it's pronounced, I guess. I googled and tried to find its meaning. Couldn't. Whatever it means, it can only spell trouble in Chennai. Tevudia means whore in tamil slang. And tevudia paiya means a bastard. So any chap with a Tavadia surname is bound to be ragged at a college in Tamil Nadu. Mind it!

To all those who won't pay for names

A lot of people write to me asking for a name. I often tell them, I do pro bono work for NGOs. But I will never do charity for a business that leverages a name for profit.

My logic is simple. A name is the 1-word story of your offering. It's not easy to create a 1-word story that's never been told.

Even if one were to coin something unique for you, remember, it has to pass the memorability test. Any namer worth his namak will tell you, this is never easy. It takes a lot of effort and research.

As much effort as creating a logo or campaign. So to expect me to give it to you for free, is a tad too unfair. Right?

Why Aggi, why?

Agnello Dias & Santhosh Padhi are the two most admired souls in advertising in India today. When they announced they were starting their own outfit, it captured the imagination of the nation. Everyone was keenly awaiting THE NAME. We namasutrists, even had a shortlist in our heads. Now we hear, they are calling their outfit ROOTS INDIA. That's a great brief, Aggi. But not a great name. A simple online check will tell you there is already a Roots Advertising in Delhi. You can't have two Roots, can you? Also, there is a plastic precision component company by the name Roots India. As agencies, when we counsel our clients to be unique, isn't it our job to be unique? We like you, Aggi. We like you, Paddy. But we think, you should have done a little research before making your name public. In any case, best wishes for your new venture.

Think about it, Donna

When Donna Karan decided to shorten her name, I am sure someone whispered into her ear that DK might sound like Decay. May be that's why she went in for DKNY. But now, emboldened by her success, she seemed to have decided to milk her name. Hence DK Men. Dunno how many guys would want the smell of Decay? Rotten stuff Donna. Might as well call it, DKaran Men or Donna for Men. What do you say, Donna?

How to fight the recession with just a name.

Laid off? Don't worry. Scrap your savings or whatever is left of it. Rent some space. Start a shop in the domain you're comfortable with. Now you might wonder, who the heck is gonna pay for promoting your store? Well, you can promote your store with zero budget. Wanna know how? Simple. Just find a good name for your store. The store name will act as your advertisement. But remember, the name must be edgy. You must either hate it or despise it. Don't get safe in these times. A controversial name will work like magic. Opt for something like Black McCain, Dirty Pope or Britney's Cups. And watch the consumers queue up with glee. That's how you melt the meltdown.

Short names are stronger?

While traveling back to Bangalore from Chennai by train, I noticed something I found quite interesting. Most brand names of cement in India are not longer than 6 letters. The next thing I know my mind is working furiouser than a steam engine to try and draw some kind of connection between these two seemingly unrelated phenomena. And here's what it came up with: is there then some merit in assuming that for any brand name to communicate the qualities of 'strength', and the like, it's better off being short? How many 'long' names can you think of for products that are supposed to convey 'strength'? Yes, I do realise most brand names will tend to be short. Obviously this is an exploration into a subset of an overall branding pattern.

Name trend forecast

The downturn will result in a dumbing down of names. More and more marketers will seek self-explanatory names that cue Value, Budget, Economy...get the drift, right? Inhouse brands will be the preferred option at retail stores. All this means only one thing: lesser naming assignments :-(

The Disease of Naming Diseases

Mike Adams made a valid point, recently. Are disease names willfully chosen to obscure and mystify the disease? Doesn't Sluggish Immune System Disease sum up cancer better than Cancer? Isn't Fatty Food Choice Disease more easily discernible than High Cholesterol? When you go through the disease list, you might actually agree with Mike. The idea of naming in this sensitive field is not to create a brand name, it's just meant to clarify. I am afraid, the exotic names being bandied about just don't do the job. May be it's time for a rethink.

Nmes in SMS

Is the about-to-be launched version of the 'Mountain Dew' bottle the first brand name to be communicated in 'Smese' (the language of SMS)? Check out the way it is written and from the looks of it, it seems to have gone down pretty well with the 'commenting' crowd. Could this be the start of a new trend in naming? Why not. Imagine a product targetting kids; say a children's magazine. How interesting it would be if they chose to communicate their brand name in 'SMese'. Of course the grown-ups wouldn't approve. Which is precisely why it's likely to work swimmingly well for the young 'uns. We think more brands should try to strut their stuff in 'SMese'. It mkakes for a more personal conversation with consumers. And now for the obligatory question to elicit a reaction: Any other brand names in 'Smese' that you can think of? (No, not come up with, but think of that already exist.)

When a catchy name can hurt...

Movie naming is a tricky business. The catchier the title, the greater the expectations from the film. And expectations is a very heavy burden to carry. A lot of directors have learned this the hard way. Titles like EMI (Easy Monthly Installment), M3V (Mudhal Mudhal Mudhal Varai), Snakes on a Plane are a little too catchy. Either they explain the story in a pithy way or they have no connection at all to the plot. Good titles avoid being catchy. They intrigue (North by North West), provoke (Blackmail), offer the premise in an interesting way (Strangers on a Train), introduce a new phrase into public lingo (Dial M for Murder) and sometimes lower your expectations by opting for the seemingly innocuous (Birds). May be, some day the movie industry will wake up to this realisation.

Go ahead, copy

When you don't have enough money. When you have a huge market waiting to give you their money. When you want to hit the ground running. When you don't want to make people remember one more thing. When you are lucky enough to be operating in a market like India or China. When you don't have to worry too much about being slapped with a law suit. When you don't want to waste your time with a naming company. Or when you just want to be like Google, launch a soundalike brand. To piggyback is an old and quite successful marketing tactic. And strategy. We think it also works in Naming. Don't agree with me? Fine, agree with someone 'respectable'.

Is Maya the most famous Sanskrit brand name?

I have this theory that, this century, we are gonna see a lot more Sanskrit brand names as namers the world over have sucked the juice out of Greek and Latin. I'll dwell upon this in another post. Meanwhile, let me state what I have discovered. I can't think of a universally recognised Sanskrit brand name. The only one that came to my mind is the Oscar-winning VFX software Maya. Christy Turlington's Sundari is not yet international. And there are not too many challengers from India. So am I right if I declare Maya as the most popular Sanskrit brand name?

A whole lot of hot air

When Nike, and Michael Jordan, launched the 'Air' series of basketball and running shoes, which eventually came to be known as 'Air Jordan', it was perhaps the first brand - apart from airlines and sappy pop bands like Air Supply - to use the word 'air' as a brand name or extension. A combination of Jordan's extraordinary ability to 'fly', some great advertising and the presence of a crucial 'benefit' in the 'air' suffix meant that the 'air' in the Nike worked like a charm and sold many millions of pairs of shoes for them. Does the 'air' in the MacBook Air work quite as well for Apple? I think it does.

Apple, I believe, is the Nike of personal computing. Like Nike, it has always been about path-breaking style and revolutionary product developments coming together to deliver a clearly superior product to its consumers. That's why 'Air' is the appropriate brand name for the world's lightest personal computer from Apple. Just like it was the right name for the world's lightest shoe, from Nike. Right, so would 'Air' work just as well if it were tagged to an offering from Microsoft? Obviously not anymore. But what if Microsoft had launched the world lightest operating system (hypothetically speaking, of course) and chosen to call it Microsoft Air? I think not.

I think that after Nike usurped the word 'air' for itself, it needed a company like Nike to take the 'air' back from for other uses. A company like Apple. Not Microsoft.

Names We Like # 2

When you work on a name that's already famous, you run the risk of being labeled, a plagiarist. But when you add a little touch of imagination to your source name, there's always the scope for magic. I call such names Remix Names. C2B2 is one such creation. It's a nod to the 1968 movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang which was in turn a nod to the children's book of the same name by Ian Fleming. For an animation flick aimed at kids of the Jetix generation, I thought Cheenti Cheenti (Hindi for Ant Ant) is an apt title. It uses 2 words that's part of the every day vocabulary of every North Indian kid. And as the plot is about Black Ants vs Red Ants, the name makes eminent sense. Me thinks, the catchiness of the name will ensure the movie is a multiplex magnet. I also feel, the film will do well in the DVD circuit as the title leaps at you the moment you look at it.

Names with memes

One of the theories I've been quite influenced by is that of 'The Selfish Gene', popularized by Richard Dawkins. (Yes, the engaging intellectual, militant atheist and fascist 'Darwnizer') (Darwin+Sermonize). In that he talks about memes. Put simply, memes are stories. And names that come with a story attached to them can add or take away from the equity a brand lends to a product is something I have been saying for sometime now.

Here's a rather more involved take on the same thing, said differently: "When children acquire the name “George Washington” they typically acquire the associated descriptions “first president of the U.S.”, “man who had wooden teeth.” When they acquire “Santa Claus” they associate with the name “jolly fat man who lives at the North Pole” or “man who brings presents on Christmas day.” The negative existential “Santa Claus does not exist” expresses no literal truth. Still it pragmatically imparts truths: truths such as that there is no jolly fat man who lives at the North Pole and wears a red suit or that there is no one who brings presents to the world’s children on Christmas Day. These things, though not literally semantically expressed by the negative existential sentence, are true." More such absorbing insights can be found there.

Extract Ctrl x, Ctrl v'ed from: 'Names That Name Nothing' by Frederick Adams. Professor of Cognitive Science & Philosophy, University of Delaware.