Robert A. Mamis

Name-calling

 

The ill-fated Texas Instrument TI 99/4 was a stubbornly held number-title that, in Bachrach's view, "helped kill the product." The now-defunct machine came off as being "complex and difficult to deal with technologically, more oriented toward mathematics than toward human things. A slash is a grammatical element that people who are less skilled in reading don't encounter very often and don't understand the meaning of. There was considerable pressure from retailers to adapt a real name, but they just wouldn't do it. A slogan won't take the place of a name."

But real names can be just as disastrous. Digital Equipment Corp.'s "Rainbow" fares nearly as poorly in Bachrach's estimation. "When Apple happened, computers were seen as packaged goods that consumers would buy based on affective messages. DEC, which had insisted on calling its products PDP-11 and VAX, decided that here was a workstation that was meant to be friendly. So what do they do? They copy Apple. They pick a nonspecific positive-affect symbol." No doubt that sounds just fine to a linguist, except, as Bachrach points out, it came five years after the fact. By then people had accepted the idea that computers were friendly, and they didn't need to be convinced by brand names. Worse still, in Rainbow, "they created the first feminine name in the history of computers. It said 'noncomputerlike.' Yet they were selling it as a professional workstation. They patently stuck a label on the thing; there was no 'rainbowness' at all. With Apple, the message is obvious and appropriate. With Rainbow, it's just terrible."

As for the noncomputerlike but masculine "Adam," Bachrach allows that "there are worse names.It was meant to say 'simple, archetypical, human.' If I were them," Bachrach adds, throwing Coleco Industries Inc. free advice from his packaged-goods past, "I would want a pair of products -- an Eve eventually."

He also blesses "PC," because it is "consonant with 'IBM.' They didn't have to put any competitive message on the name of the product. PC without the word IBM still indicates 'this is IBM's computer.' And it's meant to be generic -- the definitive such product. If the rest bring out 'PCs', it won't do IBM any harm. IBM can get away with this; they're less concerned with trademark value than the others."

But it falls to the nonsensical (in English) Atari, though, to win Bachrachian huzzahs hands down. Atari "is pure gold in packaged-goods terms." The name given to Nolan Bushnell's small electronics company back in 1974 "was accidentally brilliant. It was the sixth name Bushnell tried on the list, but it's brilliant nonetheless. He created a word that is pure, has no combinations of vowels that are difficult to say, and that's also unique. Because it wasn't a natural English word, he could develop strong rights to it, too." Another advantage of "Atari" is that it sounds Japanese, Bachrach feels. "He didn't think of that either, but to young people, all good things that don't come from the United States come from Japan. The Japanese are smart enough to have figured this out."

NameLab's notoriety draws requests from all over the country and from all levels of income. Naturally, not every business seeking a clever name can afford to indulge itself at tens of thousands of dollars a throw. It could try to play on Bachrach's sympathies, though: He feels it is unfair that only large companies have the resources to hire specialists. "A small company has to sit on a shelf competing against them. There's no way they can get the heavy muscle. There are so many people out there who have good products who should be in business but who don't have the resources."

One such product is manufactured by Kleen-All Products Inc., a small enterprise the Oklahoma City. Recently, the folks from Kleen-All phoned in with a plea for assistance. The company had a product that removes chewing gum from clothes. For no apparent reason, it was called Turbo. Turbo was selling like frozen hotcake batter in local supermarkets, demonstrating such uncanny demand that the founders felt they could go national with it.But they had been advised that the label was ugly and the name even worse. Bachrach had to tell them that NameLab was apt to be expensive for small companies; they could expect a fee of $30,000. "But," stammered the voice, "that's our annual sales!" Instead, Kleen-All proposed sending him a free bottle. "If you have any ideas what the name ought to be, let us know." After Bachrach got a look at the homespun creation, he was moved to send them a book on design and a few pointers.

Over the four years of its existence, NameLab's storerooms have steadily filled with products in similarly budgeted search of names. Such blandishments are not apt to do the trick, however. Bachrach already is facing a two-to-three-month backlog, and demand is continuing to mount. For a person to whom the business was never meant to be more than a pastime, that is a severe problem. "The obvious solution," says the would-be retiree ominously, "is to raise the price."

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