PROJECT: Name Shaw’s next generation telecommunications network, offering high-definition television, on-demand programming, high-speed Internet and advanced telephone capabilities.
THE NAME: Derived from the prefix “exo-,” meaning “outside of” (exoskeleton, exosystem). Shaw Exo is short, sweet, cool, futuristic, and works great as a graphic “bug” on TV, computer and mobile device screens.
POSITIONING: Shaw Communications, the leading cable television and Internet provider in Canada, wanted a name for its next generation television and communications network that was short, powerful, and different from the competition. Exo deftly delivers, positioning the product as beyond the usual, beyond expectations, beyond what has been done before in this space, and “outside the box,” both figuratively and literally (the TV cable box). The name is aspirational and future-forward:
“Shaw Exo is a promise that we will continue to innovate, lead, and provide the latest in technology and entertainment offerings to customers,” said Peter Bissonnette, president of Shaw Communications. “With Shaw Exo, the power of our network allows us to continue delivering the products and services that our customers are looking for.”
“Above and beyond” the parameters of the competition and most definitely outside the box, Exo is the perfect name for Shaw’s network of the future. Available now.
VISIT: Shaw Exo | Shaw Exo 2012 Super Bowl commercial
PROJECT: A revolutionary new wi-fi service for commercial aircraft.
THE NAME: From “go-go” — full of energy, vitality, or daring; stylish, modern, or up-to-date.
POSITIONING: The name had to be memorable, fun, short, universally known, be available for trademark and easy to pronounce globally, and map to both the travel experience and the Internet connectivity experience.
VISIT: Gogo
PROJECT: A new upscale online window treatments brand.
THE NAME: Derived from a very small and remote Australian Aboriginal settlement called Jupiter Well.
POSITIONING: Evocative, memorable and differentiated from the crowd of boring, mostly descriptive names in the window treatment space. This name elevates the brand above the goods being sold; is charming and disarming; emphasizes style; has some familiarity/meaning; and sounds vaguely like it could be both a designer’s name and/or evoke a non-specific sense of place. Jupiter Wells demonstrates, rather than explains, a unique, entirely new perspective, creating emotional engagement with its audience.
VISIT: Jupiter Wells
PROJECT: Naming CamelBak’s first water bottle product with a built-in filter.
THE NAME: A literal and metaphorical groove.
POSITIONING: The name Groove captures the spirit of life in motion, of being “in the groove,” “getting your groove on” and “feeling groovy.” It also maps nicely to the physical attributes of the product, with the filter slipping into a “groove” within the straw chamber and the patented CamelBak “bite valve” mouthpiece playing off the phrase “tongue and groove.”
VISIT: Groove
PROJECT: Name a new upscale urban business hotel in downtown Chicago.
THE NAME: Keen perception, sagacity, intelligence and humor.
POSITIONING: “TheWit” captures the essence of a remarkable hotel experience infused with intelligence, creativity and joie de vivre, in a business hotel that refuses to take itself too seriously.
VISIT: TheWit
PROJECT: Rename DirecTV’s 101® Network of original programming.
THE NAME: The Audience is the essential element of all entertainment.
POSITIONING: This project was an opportunity to create a television brand that was different, with a name that was about the audience rather than about the product or the network. Amazingly, though the word “audience” appears in virtually every movie review and every article about a television network, it had never been used as a name in the television / film production industry or in the entertainment business. It had been hiding in plain sight, overlooked.
VISIT: Audience Network
PROJECT: New name for Nokia’s top-of-the-line 8800 mobile phone.
THE NAME: State of the art, a work of art.
POSITIONING: The new Arte and Sapphire Arte, mobile phones that are truly works of art, among the most beautiful consumer objects available.
VISIT: Arte
PROJECT: New solid state drive (SSD) product and product family name.
THE NAME: A evocative astronomical term meaning “one of several hundred known celestial objects, generally believed to be rapidly rotating neutron stars, that emit pulses of radiation, esp. radio waves, with a high degree of regularity.”
POSITIONING: Seagate needed a name for a new product family that captured its futuristic essence and conveyed key concepts of speed, small footprint, power, capacity, durability and reliability. Pulsar is the perfect metaphorical name for this product family.
VISIT: Pulsar
PROJECT: New name for Court TV.
THE NAME: Television vérité.
POSITIONING: The new name reflects the network’s popular line-up of series that offer first-person access to exciting, real-life stories, and is no longer restricted to court-themed shows.
VISIT: TruTV
PROJECT: Name a selective brush control herbicide product.
THE NAME: Ease, precision, reliability.
POSITIONING: The name Streamline underscores the precision with which this product attacks only invasive brush, not native plants.
VISIT: Streamline
PROJECT: Name a new sales/CRM software platform. So successful was the chosen name it ultimately became the new company name too.
THE NAME: Overwhelming success (a landslide victory); great energy; a force of nature; powerful and unstoppable.
POSITIONING: Maps to software and service that prepares you for a shifting sales landscape, setting you up for overwhelming success, a Landslide victory over your sales quota. The name has great depth and multiple meanings; the negative meaning adds friction, which helps make the name even more engaging and memorable.
VISIT: Landslide
PROJECT: The luxury hotel centerpiece of the new Las Vegas CityCenter development.
THE NAME: From opera, an elaborate song for solo voice.
POSITIONING: The name Aria perfectly captures the experience of art and elegance that this hotel represents, and maps to the concept of a performance by a star that is nonetheless part of an ensemble. Aria is deftly positioned as the antithesis of the stereotype Las Vegas experience. Think cool and classy, not cheap and trashy, with none of the “theme park” pretense so prevalent in most Las Vegas hotels.
VISIT: Aria
PROJECT: Name for a new eco-friendly mobile phone.
THE NAME: Move boldly into the future; transformational; a call to action.
POSITIONING: Nokia wanted a name that would describe the environmental benefit of this particular model, but also serve as a rallying cry for environmental awareness both within the company and among consumers.
VISIT: Evolve
PROJECT: Name for a web destination serving up online games, programs and activities for boys and girls of various ages.
THE NAME: A fun place for kids to play and “monkey around.”
POSITIONING: Monkeybar is a delightful name that says, “here is a place for kids to come and play and have fun.”
PROJECT: Name a new personal and group information manager web application.
THE NAME: Twine ties all your information together.
POSITIONING: Web 3.0, AKA the “semantic web,” promises the next generation of web intelligence and advanced data mining, connectivity, and meaning. The mission of gathering all this information and “tying it all together” led to Twine, the perfect name for this new kind of information manager. An elegant word for a deceptively simple physical object, Twine is also a verb meaning,”to twist together; intertwine; interweave.” Twine it, Twine me, Twining all my information together.
PROJECT: Name for a new 5-star hotel and global luxury lifestyle brand, with hotels to be located throughout the Middle East and in key feeder markets in Europe and Asia.
THE NAME: As in the only Address you need to know.
POSITIONING: The name, like the new hotels themselves, had to cater to intra-regional leisure travelers throughout the Middle East, as well as business travelers and long-haul international travelers to the region, primarily from Europe, Asia and India. The Address captures the sense of spectacular location advantage, the feeling that “this is where it’s happening, this is the place to be.”
VISIT: The Address
