Eat My Words

Announcing the most frightful brand name of 2011… the Head Scratcher of the Year goes to…

admin — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 19:29:09 +0000

Ironically, the global search for Eat My Words‘ annual Head Scratcher of the Year winner produced the disastrous mash-up of those very two words global + search: Glearch. This trainwreck of two perfectly good words is without a doubt, the worst brand name of 2011. Honorable mention goes to Qwikster (died a quik death), Helishopter (what the heli were they thinking?), and Fooducate (so similar to fornicate, it sounds like something you could be arrested for if you did it in the aisle of your local Safeway).

The unanimous response to Glearch is it conjures up terrifying images of Lurch, the freakishly tall and ghoulish manservant from the Addam’s Family, who never spoke, using only grunts, sighs, or simple gesticulations. This is never a good thing. Glearch also reminds people of the word, lurch, which has many unfortunate definitions. And it’s hard to spell… Glerch, Glurch, Glurruch… you shouldn’t need a search engine to find Glearch. Duh.

We admit that Glearch is actually a pretty cool tool. It lets you search by country, language, and/or by search engine. Clearly someone very smart created it. Unfortunately they were not as skilled when it came to creating the name. As with past Head Scratcher winners, including Xobni, Speesees, Shwowp, and Shryk, we suspect Glearch was the result of a drunken Scrabble game. Tip: Just because a domain name is available on GoDaddy for $9.95 does not mean that is what you should name your company.

As the winner of Eat My Words’ 2011 Head Scratcher of the Year award, Glearch will receive a freakishly tall gold plated trophy. (We’re also happy to give them some complimentary name consulting should they decide to glearch for a new name.)

Special props go to super sleuth Charles Knight, of AltSearchEngines, who tipped us off to the name Glearch, along with dozens of others clunkers, over the past few months. Charles suggested a new definition for Glearch: a verb meaning, to turn something wonderful into something terrible. We submitted “glearch” and its new definition to the Urban Dictionary, where you can now find it listed.

Please continue to send us bad names for our 2012 Head Scratcher contest. And if you want to make sure the next brand name you come up with doesn’t win that freakishly tall trophy, take the Eat My Words SMILE & SCRATCH name evaluation test to see if your name sucks. Of course, please contact us right away if your name does indeed suck. Operators are standing by.

You should get yourself to Rehab

admin — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 20:19:23 +0000

A few months ago we got a call from entrepreneur Veeno Suchdeve of West Babylon, New York. He was opening a self-serve frozen yogurt store at the mall and wanted a more provocative name than Spoon Me, which is quite possibly the best name ever created by Eat My Words. Veeno asked us to create a name he could monetize with branded merchandise that would appeal to teenage mallrats and bring in cold, hard cash. This was a hard order to fill, but we were up for the challenge. I immediately thought of the name Self Gratification, but Veeno thought it was a little too edgy. Then, inspired by my longtime addiction to frozen yogurt, aversion to alcohol, and fascination with Lindsey Lohan, I came up with the name Rehab. It was fun, fresh and scored 100% on the SMILE & SCRATCH test. (Rena created the equally fun tagline, “Get your fix.”) And our 12-stepper friends assured us that they didn’t find the name or tagline offensive or mean-spirited. We absolutely love the playful identity design, which was created by our talented go-to designer, John Luckett. By turning the R into an Rx symbol with a spoon, the logo instantly communicates that Rehab is related to food. (Hopefully no one interprets it as a coke, crack, or smack spoon.) If the name Rehab makes you smile, please show them some love and “like” them on their new Facebook page.

Crib Notes

admin — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 20:14:53 +0000

We have been busy cooking up names for everything from caveman food to church software to consumer electronics. Our clients are choosing some fantastic names and having tremendous success in trademarking. We’ll let you know as soon as we can take them out of the Easy Bake Oven. Our superstar namer Gina (not to be confused with Rena, below), just had the ultimate creative challenge – naming her new baby. Congrats to Gina and Jeff on the birth of Graydon Peressni Clarke, born 9/22/11. Outside the office, I’ve been doing a lot of public speaking, including engagements at the Chamber of Commerce and Rocket Space. If you belong to a group that might enjoy my entertaining presentation, “How to Create Brand Names with Buzz,” please let me know. Finally, I rented our former digs to some colorful tenants and have completely transformed the loft from the Eat My Words office into the pimped out “Candyland Crib.” Before we moved, I rented it out for a few hours to Swaggaville Entertainment to shoot rapper Metro P’s new video. Of course I spent the entire $1000 rental fee on bling.

Swing by our new digs at Embarcadero Four

admin — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 19:51:35 +0000

We’re all moved in to our new stylin’ space on the 14th floor of Embarcadero 4, across the street from the Ferry Building. Please note our new addy: 4 Embarcadero Center, Suite 1400, SF CA 94111. Phone # is the same: Office: 415-552-7741. As you can see, we brought a lot of our funky furnishings from our old space, including the stuffed animal sofa and Moon Rocket. We love being in the hotbed of San Francisco business, exploring endless new places to eat, watching daredevil zipliners fly through the air, and of course being walking distance to our downtown clients like Riverbed Technology, Orrick, Del Monte, and Hotel Vitale. A nice surprise was discovering that we have a bird’s eye view of the beautiful flocks of green parrots who swoop down from Telegraph Hill every afternoon to nest in the treetops below. Speaking of flying, The Blue Angels are in town next week and we expect to see them whizzing by our windows. Let us know if you’re in the neighborhood and want to fly by, too. We’re easily accessible by BART, Muni, streetcar, bus, car, bike, rollerskates, ferry, speedboat, rocketship and helicopter.

Debbie Does More Than Dallas…

admin — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 19:17:59 +0000

If you’ve ever been stuck in voicemail hell, it may have been the voice of Debbie Irwin who told you to “Press 9 for customer service.” The voice of the Statue of Liberty, Debbie is one of most interesting people I’ve ever met. A former NYC stockbroker, she left Wall Street for Sesame Street when she started to have kids. After they were grown, she took a class in voiceovers and was not only hooked, she was hired. You can hear her voice on countless commercials, corporate videos, audio books, webspots, eLearning programs and more. Debbie Irwin the person is highly memorable. Unfortunately her business name, Debbie Irwin Voiceovers, was kinda forgettable. It didn’t shout out among her competitors or evoke her playful sense of humor. By rebranding her as Debbie Does Voiceovers, we gave her an instantly likable, loud, and unforgettable name that her clients love and love to talk about.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was…

admin — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 19:02:29 +0000

If you’ve seen our cute little pink fridge business card, you’ve seen the work of Cindy Lee, a former designer and creative director who discovered that she is even better at sales than she is at design. For the past few years, Cindy was the top sales person for On Request Images (ORI), a company that shoots custom photo libraries for global brands. The name On Request Images is so clunky and generic – it could apply to any photography service. So when Cindy branched out on her own to form a similar company, she tapped us to create a distinctive name that shed light on what her company provides. I thought it was a no-brainer that “Libraries” should be in the name. And “Lightbox” was a much more interesting and unexpected word than “photography” or “images.” Together, Lightbox Libraries communicates what her service is in a much more distinctive and ownable way than On Request Images.

What kind of sick company names a product in honor of a Nazi death camp?

admin — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 18:59:03 +0000

Trust me. There is nothing even remotely funny about a gas chamber. My 1999 visit to the Bergen Belsen concentration camp in northern Germany was hands-down the most sobering experience of my life and one of the most unforgettable travel experiences I’ve ever had. I was reading The Diary of Anne Frank at the time and it was all too real seeing where she died. Imagining the horror of what she and 50,000 innocent people were subjected to there is beyond comprehension. What kind of sick company would intentionally name a product in honor of a place where such unspeakable crimes against humanity were committed? The British clothing label Evil Twin, makers of the “Belsen Was a Gas Military Parka.” This name goes beyond bad taste. It’s absolutely shameful.

Orrick (Verbatim)

admin — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 18:09:52 +0000

“Alexandra and her team did a fantastic job managing our organization through the exercise of selecting a brand name. We are extremely pleased with the results and hope to have the opportunity to work with her again. I strongly recommend Eat My Words.”

- Seth McNary
Director, Global Corporate Secretary Service
Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP

Nab your personal brand name free on About.Me

admin — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 23:27:25 +0000

If you haven’t nabbed your “personal brand” name yet on About.Me do it now before someone else beats you to it. This is the most professional way I’ve seen to consolidate (and track) your online presence. And signing up is fast and free.

About.Me has a beautifully clean design and they make it so simple, anyone (even a PC user) can make their page look cool. (It’s the opposite of a cluttered MySpace page.)

Just like a Twitter handle, email addy, or domain name, it’s important when someone types in your name they get YOU (as opposed to a drag queen or adult film star.) Take it from us at naming agency Eat My Words – all the cool kids are doing it! Even if you don’t use it now, you’ll want it later.

Luckily I beat all of these other Alexandra Watkins’ to the punch…

Make sure your brand name (Alexis Couture) isn’t the same name as a drag queen and a P0RN STAR.

admin — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 03:55:27 +0000

Oh dear God! My favorite sexy blonde housewife, Alexis Bellino (aka “Jesus Barbie”) of Bravo TV’s Real Housewives of Orange County, has made the ultimate naming sin – according to my research on Boobpedia and Power Diva Productions, her new clothing line, “Alexis Couture” is the same name as a BBW adult entertainment actress and a Detroit drag queen (who by the way has held the title of “Miss Malebox.”) Talk about a name that sucks! WWJD? (For all of you heathens out there, WWJD stands for “What Would Jesus Do?”)

Naming Tip #1: Alexis, sometimes it’s okay to share brand names (e.g. Ford Explorer & Internet Explorer, Ace Hardware & Ace Bandages) but as a devout Christian, you shouldn’t be associated with brands that God forbid get confused with yours.

Naming Tip #2: When you are naming a business, make sure to do a Google check first and of course use a trademark attorney to cover your assets. (Page 1 Google results revealed the drag queen Alexis Couture, pictured here. I had to go a little deeper to find Alexis Couture the p0rn star.)

Naming Tip #3: Don’t do it yourself – hire a naming agency run by your superfan. Honestly Alexis, if you need a new name, the stylish women of my naming agency, Eat My Words, would love to help you… I personally am a diehard fan of the show – and I love your couture designs – with and without the sleeves chopped off.

Naming Tip #4: If you are crowd-sourcing your logo with a design contest, make sure whatever you are naming your business is “free and clear” before you have your identity designed. All of those poor designers are spending hours doing work that will never be selected (unless you dare to use that name, which I think is a massive mistake considering it would tarnish your good name and squeaky-clean reputation). You’re better off hiring a professional identity designer any way. You wouldn’t want to crowd source a dress design? Think of a professional designer as “couture” logo design.

Regardless of if you hire us to name your business, do yourself a favor and run your new name through the free Eat My Words SMILE & SCRATCH name evaluation test (as featured in The Wall Street Journal).

Best of luck to you!
Your superfan, Alexandra Watkins
Chief Innovation Officer
Eat My Words