But I don’t really have anything against “empty vessel” names per se. I agree they’re not appropriate in every situation, but I’d argue that the rationale/stories for a lot of names that “make sense” are probably completely lost on consumers anyway. Do Apple customers think about Newton, and do most Googlers know what a googol is? I suspect they don’t—that they just have a gut like or dislike for the name. Or, as you’ve implied, they fall in love with the product/company, and that has a positive impact on their opinion of the name, not the other way around (hence all the post-rationalization in the naming industry).

Anyway, I’ve hijacked your comments section talking about the name, which isn’t the focus of your post. Let’s get back to something we agree on: the “All You Need Is Love” ad stinks.

The ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE campaign is utterly confusing. What does ‘love’ have to do with blackberry? A brightly colored “new” version of the logo and a catchy Beatles tune won’t convert an i phone user to a crackberry user.
Sorry RIM, you are a copy cat.
The blackberry is not sexy. It’s functional. I refuse to get an Iphone because-well, they are way too cool for me.
Blackberries are the Osterizer of phones and shouldn’t even play with the I-phone FUN and SEXY category.
After 8 blackberries, all I need is a blackberry without a faulty trackball.
Not Love.
I can find that berry on another tree.

We tend not to like empty vessels, when with a bit of hard work you can develop a name that does something to underscore what your brand stands for. If your product is great enough or you spend enough money, you can make people respond to any name (Avaya, Accenture, Viagra, Prius et al.); but not all products are good enough, and not all organizations have enough resources to select a name that isn’t relevant out of the gate.

Apple: We always thought that drawing inspiration from Newton was good for a computer company, but we would have liked it better if they’d focused more on the ‘tree of knowledge’ angle (which would have worked brilliantly in parallel to the 1984 ad, don’t you think?).

Google: As we’ve written before, we think this was a missed opportunity, but it goes to show you that a bad name does not guarantee failure.

Yahoo!: Don’t mind it – we thought it was the fun alternative to AOL when it launched, and the name captured that.

Sony and Kodak: It’s hard to evaluate these iconic names separately from the products they stand for, but evaluating them purely as names – yes, we think they were weak.

And lest you think we’re only capable of criticism, here’s some praise for names we think are (or were) effective:

Kiss My Face – a line of skin care products
Handspring – a PDA maker, now part of Palm
Airborne – pure genius to tie an herbal supplement to staying healthy in-flight
Oracle – a database that lets you see the future? Come on!
Playground – leisure destination real estate development
Prophet – for a brand consultancy that tries pretty hard to look like a management consultancy to name itself (homonymically at least) after money is just plain smart

Any other questions?

I agree with Roxana; this does remind me of Microsoft trying to force feed consumers something they know isn’t true. I’ve blogged about it a few times (with increasing frustration) and it looks like RIM is doing the same thing here.

Great post.

But I don’t hate the name “Blackberry” at all. I actually like it. Does hating names that lack “relevant meaning” mean you also dislike Apple, Google, Yahoo, Sony, Kodak, etc.? Or have you managed to rationalize all of those?