Friend: "I checked out Blinx like you said but it's this site in German!?"
Me: "B-L-I-N-K-X. Interesting product, moronic name."

What were the folks behind Blinkx thinking? For what was undoubtedly slated to be a word-of-mouth product, why would any semi-intelligent marketing/branding person give their offering a name that could be so easily mistaken for something else?

Pop quiz (and don't peek back at the earlier paragraph)... what was their product named again?
A) Blinx
B) Blinkx
C) Blinks
D) Blinkz

The right answer is B. The other right answer is: fire the person who named that product.And in a related example of advertising stupidity, there's the whole Tacoma / Dakota sophomoric ad campaign that's been on billboards everywhere lately, at least here in San Francisco.

The ads feature lame, swaggering comments alluding to the fact that the Tacoma is beefier and brawnier than the Dakota. Or -- wait! -- maybe it was the other way around.

The names of these vehicles, which apparently compete in the same market space, are so similar as to make it impossible for me to remember (much less care) which is which. Studies show that consumers weren't even able to recall what burger joint blitzed the airwaves with the comic "Where's the Beef?" ads; what are the odds that people will remember -- much less be swayed in their purchase decisions -- by billboards which consistently mix in mentions of two similarly named products?

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