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Earlier this week, I heard the YMCA is changing its logo and its “everyday name” to “the Y,” because that’s how most people refer to the youth-focused non-profit. According to Mamie Moore, national spokeswoman for YMCA of the USA, “What we’re doing is calling ourselves ‘the Y’ because that’s what everybody calls us. But YMCA is still our legal name.”

YMCA, of course, is already short for Young Men’s Christian Association, and some media speculate the organization is trying to remove the “Christian” reference from its acronym. However, the Y contends that it put two years of research into the name change and new logo, and that they are really just trying to connect with a hip young audience that does not understand what the Y’s mission is. (I’m a little confused how shortening the name to ‘the Y’ helps explain that mission any better or differently than ‘YMCA’ did, and even more confused because both the old and new logo emphasized the letter Y and both have a proportionately smaller “YMCA” as part of the mark.)

The Y is not the first well-known entity to shorten its name to shed old perceptions or connect with new customers. In 1991, Kentucky Fried Chicken changed its name and simplified its logo to KFC. At that time, KFC management was trying to make itself a chain of the 1990s, introducing healthier menu items, enforcing stricter operating standards, and ultimately rebranding the company that Colonel Harlan Sanders first franchised in 1952. KFC not only resonated with customers who already referred to it by its initials, but also allowed the company to drop the emphasis on “fried.”

A few years later, Federal Express officially became FedEx, and not just because that’s what most people already called it; FedEx also spent several years researching the name change and creating the new logo. Key issues identified through research showed that Federal Express sounded too similar to a growing field of global competitors. Also, the word “Federal” – originally chosen to convey an official and reliable alternative to the U.S. Postal Service – had become associated with government bureaucracy in the minds of consumers. The new logo, which had to reinforce the company’s goal of being “big and bold but friendly and accessible” had an added bonus: While spelling out ‘Federal Express’ only allowed for 58-inch letters on the side of a delivery truck, the letters spelling FedEx now stand six feet tall on most trucks.

Each of these high-profile name changes were backed by months or years of research, hundreds of thousands of dollars in media and PR, and an overall broad awareness by consumers of what these companies already provided. But also this week, I read about a small local company – currently known as The Cupcakery – that is changing its name to The Cup later this month.

According to the news article, the multi-location cupcake bakery, started in 2007 in St. Louis, is changing its name to avoid confusion with other cupcakeries opening across the nation. (The news release didn’t specify, but I’m guessing they are referring to cupcake franchises such as Cupcake Station and Original Cupcake.) But I can’t help wondering if they are inviting a whole new source of confusion; to me, their new name says nothing of cupcakes and says everything about being a coffeehouse. (It also doesn’t help that The Cupcakery’s Flavor of the Week is Mocha Cappucino.)

The new logo does include a cupcake with some swirly icing, but the new illustration is not nearly as “cupcake-y” as the previous logo with the clearly-fluted brown baking cup below the generous green icing.

Even though I’m in St. Louis, I’m not familiar with The Cupcakery, so I don’t know if they conducted research to show that this name and logo change resonate with their target demographics. (I hope they did.) I also have no idea if they are really changing their name to avoid confusion with other companies, or if perhaps they are being forced to change it because they did not trademark it and someone else did. I hope I’m wrong about this, but from the outside looking in, it seems like a case of making a change that will avoid one problem yet create many others.

Changing a name, logo or packaging is one of the most exciting and stressful things a company can do. When is the right time to change a brand, and how do you know if the change is a good one? Consumer research can point you in the right direction, but you also have to look at what you’re changing and ask yourself: Am I making it better, or am I just making it different?

Business, Communications, Marketing

I’ve been repeating this new mantra to myself all week, trying to figure out if it’s true – and if it’s a good thing or a bad thing. I didn’t coin this phrase. I read it in a blog post by Penelope Trunk, who was essentially rewriting a “guest post” that Christine Hohlbaum had written for Penelope’s Brazen Careerist blog. I don’t know if Hohlbaum invented this phrase either, or if perhaps she read it in a 2007 article written by Sally Hogshead. (Hogshead isn’t just brazen about her career; her web site is RadicalCareering.com.)

For those not familiar with Penelope, she admittedly has a tough time turning over the content on her blog to a guest writer – even one she admires. She says she completely rewrote what Hohlbaum submitted, but I suspect Penelope did a pretty good job of summarizing the key points in Hohlbaum’s new book, The Power of Slow: 101 Ways to Save Time in our 24/7 World.

I haven’t read the book, but if I’m interpreting the blog post correctly, Hohlbaum’s point is that in our overscheduled world, our default state is “busy.” It used to be that if someone passed us and asked, “How are you doing?” we would automatically answer, “Fine.” Now, fine has been replaced with busy, and I think Hohlbaum is telling us that this shift represents a sad, stressed and dangerous state for the new norm. Especially for those people who think busy is a perfect (even preferable?) synonym for fine.

I think I like this phrase, but not because I relate busy to being overworked; I think I see busy as the opposite of underworked and underchallenged. In my daily business relationships, people want to know if we’ve been busy. I get called on by a lot of printers, who all ask if we’re busy. If we’re not busy, that means we’re slow. In the manufacturing world, slow isn’t good (I saw that side of the business a year ago), so busy is a welcome change. Busy means you’re doing fine. It means, “We’re going to be okay.” If you’re not busy, you’re going out of business. A lot of the printers I talk to are not busy.

There is another side to this too. You can be busy, and still not be doing fine. For example, I know a lot of freelance creatives – many of whom were previously employed at agencies – who are uncomfortably busy, but they are not working. Or more accurately, they are not working as much as they want to be working. They are busy with the tasks of finding new projects and making new connections. They are busy being hunters, gatherers and doers, when frankly they are much more comfortable just being creative.

If Hogshead is the author of “busy is the new fine,” then she wrote it at the peak of our pre-recession euphoria, and certainly didn’t mean being busy is better than being unemployed. She meant that if we’re overworked (ie: spending 65% of our waking hours at our jobs), then we better make sure we are working at something we love. I agree with that philosophy as well.

I will probably read Hohlbaum’s book, not just because I want to understand exactly what she means by “busy is the new fine,” but also because I’d like to see if slowing my life down would be a good thing. (According to Penelope Trunk, a big part of achieving that is learning to say no, which is something else I’m working on.) Hopefully I’ll read it soon. Unless I get too busy. Which would probably be fine.

Business, Communications

The packaging company I work for has recently developed a proprietary spray frosting technique for glass and plastic bottles which is much more environmentally-friendly than conventional spray frosts that contain volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The guys at our Technigraph decorating division named it Eco-Frost, which is a great name because it says exactly what it is: ecologically responsible + frosted effect.

We all liked it so much we decided to see if we could trademark it. The process wasn’t cheap, especially when it came on the tail end of substantial capital investments in technology that haven’t started generating revenue yet. The first step was a trademark search to make sure no existing competitors were already using the name. When that panned out, there was a second fee for actually trademarking the Eco-FrostTM name, which we did.

With a soft launch this past September – and a full-scale production launch scheduled for January – we can now rest assured that while people will try to copy the chemistry, at least they can’t commandeer our name.

Since trademarks have been top of mind for me this month, I was especially intrigued by headlines in the St. Louis Business Journal about a local company that was suing Microsoft for alleged trademark infringement. The company, Bing! Information Design, creates charts, maps and other illustrated graphics to visually communicate hard-to-grasp concepts. They say they have been using the Bing! name for nearly a decade, and their logo is a yellow light bulb with the lowercase word “bing” and an exclamation point in the font that makes me think “got milk?”

Identity crisis? Bing! Information Design's suit consistently uses Bing! with a capital B and an exclamation point, but the company's only logomark clearly shows a lowercase "b." How could Microsoft expect to know how a design company will use its mark if they don't even use it consistently?

Their suit alleges Microsoft’s Bing search engine is “causing confusion and diluting the value” of Bing! Information Design’s name. Their lawyer says they have a trademark application pending, and their 9-page suit says Bing! Information Design is the “owner” of the name, and has applied for the trademark in the State of Missouri.

The Federal trademark registry says the Missouri company’s application was submitted May 26, 2009. (Perhaps coincidentally, this was also the same day that PC World announced Microsoft had purchased the bing.com domain name from a series of defunct businesses.) The USPTO shows that Microsoft applied for its trademark on the Bing name on March 2, 2009 (nearly three months prior to Bing! Information Design’s application).

I’m all for the little guy holding fast against the mega-corporation. I believe no company, especially one that makes $58.4 billion a year, should be able to steal the rightfully-trademarked name of a small limited liability company and dilute the value of their business. I want every company in St. Louis to do well, and I would almost always side with the underdog. But, when the plaintiff in this case says Microsoft’s choice of the Bing name was “outrageous due to its evil motive and reckless interference,” and yet this same company did not even bother to register its own trademark until Microsoft had already negotiated ownership of the coveted bing.com URL, I find it hard to have empathy for them.

Bing! Information Design’s suit also claims Microsoft “had knowledge of the (Plaintiff’s) mark and Plaintiff’s expectancy in usage of the mark.” I’m not sure how they can substantiate this. Although the USPTO did question Microsoft’s ability to use the Bing name because of potential competitors who had already trademarked the name, the St. Louis company was not among those established (and registered) companies it listed.

I don’t know the legal ins and outs of trademark law, and I don’t know if filing for a trademark three months after someone else has already filed gives you protection to prevent Microsoft – or anyone else – from using your brand name on a global level. But my point is that if you have a good name and you want to protect it, you need to bite the bullet and spend the money to properly register it. Before someone else does.

As I head into January and embark on a strong push for Eco-FrostTM, I know I’m glad I don’t have to worry about competitors stealing our name, even if Microsoft decides to enter the spray frost industry.

Business, Marketing

December 1 is here, and for bloggers, that means we now have to disclose if and when we are getting paid to blog about any product or service we’re mentioning online. I’m not personally concerned about this new FTC guideline, mostly because I believe in full disclosure in any form of media. And also, because I don’t make my living getting paid to promote products that I wouldn’t be happy to pay for in the first place.

But just out of curiosity, I looked at my small body of blog posts to see if perhaps – in the days before this was forbidden – I might have inadvertently given positive recommendations of anything I received for free.

Unfortunately, I realized I not only haven’t been paid to speak favorably about the products and services I’ve blogged about, but I have actually PAID FOR most of the experiences I’ve shared with you over the past year. A few examples:

• The Eight O’Clock Coffee package redesign I blogged about in February (and March!) was based solely on my love of packaging, and not on the premise of free coffee. I don’t recall if I started buying Eight O’Clock Coffee regularly around that time, but I know for sure I’ve been buying it recently (and enjoying it, by the way).
• Also in March, I plugged a local St. Louis company called Graphic Leftovers that has created a market for the graphical elements that talented designers create for finicky clients who never buy them. Graphic Leftovers has never paid me for that plug, nor do they likely read my blog and realize that I plug them. But I like their resourcefulness, and I’d use them again anytime I have the need for a quick graphic with no strings attached.
• In June, I talked about two family resorts we had stumbled upon through Internet research, and subsequently vacationed at in 2008 and 2009. I wish I could tell you I was savvy enough to call these resorts prior to our visits and negotiate a free week’s stay for myself and my family in return for some positive press coverage (which would be read by my five regular readers), but I was not that smart. Instead, we had two strings-free vacations (both of which we thoroughly enjoyed) that I paid retail price for.
• In the interest of full disclosure, I have also not received any free Obama Chia Heads from www.whatonearthcatalog.com – and I’ll admit I have not purchased any. I love this particular catalog, but the $24.95 price tag is a little steep for my gag gift budget.

Plus I haven’t made nearly enough on my blogging career to afford one.

Business, Communications, Marketing

Several months ago, the blogging world was shocked that the FTC was airing new guidelines that would require bloggers to disclose any paid endorsements or other in-kind benefits they have received in return for blogging about specific products or services. Now that the guidelines are published, they seem less ominous and, frankly, are no different than false advertising guidelines for other mainstream media.

Most true bloggers are not out to mislead the public about the quality of products they encounter. In fact, the traditional blogging community has prided itself on self-patrolling blogs and viral media sites to maintain the authenticity of this new medium. Remember three years ago when St. Louis-based Zipatoni launched a fake YouTube rap video that was supposed to be done by two young guys using their musical talents to convince their moms to buy them each a much-desired Sony PSP? When Sony and its ad agency were found to be the genius behind the video, there was a huge backlash against Sony for using viral marketing in a dishonest manner. (Oh, and Zipatoni lost the prominent account, too.) In the blogosphere, there have been many cases of bloggers losing their credibility as well when the things they gush about are obviously too good to be true.

Most bloggers would be appalled if their brethren began accepting the equivalent of bribes to start promoting products they didn’t really believe in. I think the FTC actions were originally interpreted by honest bloggers as criticism of bloggers’ integrity, and they were offended that the government had to step in and patrol the blogosphere, just as it patrols other media that have already sold out to sponsors.

But just like any popular media, blogging has become the target of numerous companies that way to harness the power of popular and powerful bloggers. I myself have worked with companies that have offered free merchandise or discounts to bloggers who agreed to try their products or services and give a positive review. (I’m not sure positive review was explicit, but it was certainly implicit.) The good news is that we can still tap into the important blogging community — but now the bloggers will be legally obligated to disclose if they were compensated in any way if they do receive something for their time and consideration.

But in the honest world of blogging, wouldn’t we do that anyway?

Business, Communications, Marketing