Losing the Name Game

What idiot is in charge of picking the brand names for publication papers?

We noted yesterday the passing of the AbiBow Eco Gloss brand name that was created by the moniker-challenged AbitibiBowater. (Repeat either the brand name or the company name 10 times very quickly.)

SAPPI has supposedly given up on its Belgrade brand name. There is no truth to the rumor that it had considered coming out with a series of other brands named after the world’s bleakest places, such as Mogadishu Matte, Chernobyl Chrome, and Auschwitz Satin.

Catalyst had a pretty good LWC name in Pacifica Gloss, but then the Freudians in the marketing department changed it to Electracote. To become gender neutral, will Catalyst call its new coated #4 product Oedipuscote?

Myllykoski has tried to get hip to the Me Generation by naming everything MY something – MY GOLD, MY PLUS, MY SYMMETRY, MY BRITE, and so on. MY GOD, enough is enough!

Even the environmentalists pestering some paper companies have trouble with names. Remember Candace the Caribou (right), the character ForestEthics created to protest that logging in Canada’s boreal forest was destroying caribou habitat? The effort was targeted at American consumers, who responded, “What’s a caribou?” Answer: the Canadian word for reindeer.

Now if Greenpeace had created Rudolph the Homeless Reindeer and shown him pushing a shopping cart full of stuff, maybe we would have gotten the message.