Naming

There are lots of ways to categorise possible names. Adapting the work of others, this is the best I've come up with so far.

Types of name:

1) Descriptive/functional names:

1.1 Functional (what the company does), e.g. Microsoft

1.2 Experiential (benefit you get from it), e.g. Vue Cinemas

1.3 Provenance (people or place related), e.g. Oprah Magazine, Evian, John Lewis

1.4 Customer promise: Taste the Difference, Pret a Manger

2) Associative names

2.1 Emotional/personality, e.g. Yahoo!

2.2 Visual, e.g. Red Bull

3) Abstract, e.g. Orange, Blueotooth, Apple

Within these categories you can have:

- Existing words or coined/invented ones

- Full names or abbreviates

- Literal names or metaphorical ones (e.g. Oracle, O2, Internet Explorer)

Stopgap Character Analysis (for interviews etc)

Stopgap recruitment use a personality test, which seems to be a simplified version of Myers-Briggs. It has some questions that might be interesting in interviews too.

http://profile.stopgap.co.uk/sgca.php

Tone of Voice

What are the key variables when deciding a brand's (or anyone's) tone of voice?

One has to be:

Formal <-> Informal

What else?

Book: Leading the Revolution by Gary Hamel

About how to be a change agent within your big corporation.

Generally too irritating to read, with constant changes in font size and lists. But has some really good stories, inc:

- How an engineer who believed in digital when Sony was an analogue company ended up getting them to do Playstation

- How someone got Shell into renewables, particularly by pointing out that oil too was once a niche product

- How IBM got into the internet (see separate icon actions post)

Iconic Action: IBM takes a big Internet stand

A guy from IBM visited an early Internet conference. IBM had no presence there. So he booked the biggest stand for the next year's conference, even though he didn't have the authority or budget. This gave IBM a year to pull together a coherent web offer for the show.

Source: Leading the Revolution, Gary Hamel

Ads on Demand

When you're watching ad-supported video on demand, surely you should get a choice of which ads you'd like to watch? Would be better for both advertisers and viewers.

Glasgow's School Meals - Fuel Zone

Initiative in Glasgow pre-dates Jamie's School Dinners and involves tempting kids to try healthier food.

• Canteens refurbished to look more like fast food outlets
• Cashless sytem increases free school meal uptake, as it hides who is getting free meals and so reduces stigma
• Points system for healthy eating - get an iPod for eating well!

Best article found after a quick Google:
http://www.nsmcentre.org.uk/component/nsmccasestudy/?task=view&id=81&Itemid=42&format=pdf

Experimentation & Testing

Useful post on different types of testing on the web.

Includes:
- A/B testing
- Multi-variate testing
- 'Experiential' testing (didn't really understand this)

http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2006/05/experimentation-and-testing-a-primer.html

Testing: give away cheapest products and boost sales of premium one

A software company found in testing that giving aware their cheapest product actually increased sales of their premium product.

Source: http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2008/11/experiment-die-reasons-awesome-testing-ideas.html

Crutchfield

Just came across this US electronics store. Seems to try to differentiate through good advice, even on the web. They have photos and bios of all their advisors on the site - must be good for both morale and sales.

Seems from this screenshot that their tagline used to be "34 years of helping people choose, use and enjoy electronics", but they now use something blander.