Final Analysis: Naming Rights (and Wrongs)

Remember the haloid photographic company?

I dont, either.

But I remember the hoo-ha in the 1960s when Xerox ditched the Haloid name. Everyone thought Xerox was kind of odd. But, within a generation, Xerox had become as generic as Kleenex. People didnt say they were photocopying. They said they were Xeroxing. Any CEO would trade her stock options and her parking space for that kind of consumer acceptance. Having your companys name become the very definition of the product it sells is better than having pie for breakfast with Olivia Munn.

Xerox may have hit it out of the park, but, as Lloyd McClendon knows, for every home run hitter, there are dozens of guys named Haloid swinging for the fences and missing badly. Take Bloodworks Northwest. After 70 years as the Puget Sound Blood Center, it decided it needed a name that starts a conversation about who we are now.

If Im having the conversation, it starts with, Do you have to be a vampire to join Bloodworks Northwest? It continues with, Does Dr.Acula work here?

I kid. Bloodworks Northwest does good work. But the new name doesnt entice me to donate a pint. In addition to vampires, it conjures images of people in lab coats running tests to determine if my bubonic plague is the serious kind or something that will clear up soon.

Same goes for Archbright, formerly Washington Employers, which provides businesses with all sorts of helpful advice on issues concerning payroll, benefits, workers comp, training, retirement and so on. I have personal experience with Washington Employers sorry, Archbright and know it to be a fine business.

But its new name? Meh. I get that removing Washington allows the company to expand outside the state, but Archbright sounds like a cleaning product I might buy from an infomercial pitchman in the wee hours. Call now and well send you a second bottle of Archbright, plus the arch scrubber and the arch extender, absolutely free. Thats two bottles of Archbright, two scrubbers, two extenders a $360 value for only $19.95!

Of course, some name changes are brilliant, regardless of whether the new name has any chance of becoming another Xerox. HasOffers became Tune because somebody at HasOffers finally realized HasOffers was possibly the worst name in the annals of bad corporate names. Tune supports the mobile marketing industry and HasOffers remains its main software product so its hard to believe that a company doing business in marketing could come up with something so lacking in lyrical persuasiveness in the first place. Tune is simple and elegant, and its musical allusion at least suggests an effort to create a connection to stay in tune, if you will with a clients marketing needs.

On the other hand, Poachable recently changed its name to Anthology [see page 41]. Not a stellar move. The company plays matchmaker between an employer and a so-called passive candidate who isnt necessarily looking for a new job but might be interested if the right offer came along. The name Poachable says it all: Well hook you up with people at other firms so you can poach them. Good luck!

Anyone can see why it became Anthology. Telling the whole world that you facilitate the poaching of another companys workers isnt going to win you many friends. But I tried the name Anthology on two colleagues and both thought I was referring to Anthropologie, the womens fashion store.

So much for name recognition. Anthology might want to Xerox its mission statement and send it out to potential poachers.

John Levesque is the managing editor of Seattle Business magazine.