a tech-heavy name, like the XCell-o-meterTX7, which the engineers love?
Placek: That conversation happens here every week, and not just with technology companies, though I think there's more conversations with them. What we really try to share with them, from our experience and with the foundation of our success, is that if you just describe something, you're really telling a very poor story.
What you want to do is stimulate people's imagination and get them interested in [your product]. For that you have to have a name that has a level of provocativeness, so that it signals, hey, there's something new here. Once you have [your customers'] attention, then you can explain to them what it is. People will get it. But it's more important that you begin to tell a story rather than just describe something. Most people, after conversations about it with us, and thinking about names like BlackBerry, Java or Apple, begin to get a sense of that.
CIO.com: Beyond creative challenges, how tough is it to find a brand-new name for a technology product given today's large amount of trademark, copyright and other legal issues?
Placek: It's very tough. In most businesses, as you gain experience and your people gain experience and longevity, and you invest in company systems and software, there are many of the aspects of the business that get simple. But in our business, every year trademarks are filed, and we still have only 26 letters of the alphabet. And every year more and more trademark clutter is added to that space, which we have to maneuver through.
There are more products in the marketplace than there were 26 years ago, people are more competitive and there are more ways to reach customers. So, it is more challenging. To give you perspective: Trademark law is divided into 42 classes; technology is Class Nine, with Apple, Cisco and software and hardware. When I started Lexicon 26 years ago, in Class Nine, there were about 15,000 registered trademarks. Just last week, I had our trademark team run the numbers: There are over 650,000 registered trademarks in that class. Now that's just for the U.S. If you're a Cisco, Intel or Microsoft, you're not just doing business in the U.S. You're going to do business in 25 or 30 countries, at a minimum. You can imagine the challenge we have before us.
CIO.com: So how often do you and your staff come up with an awesome name, and you check on it and someone else is already using it?
Placek: Every day. Microsoft just announced their new operating system, the brand for Azure, and we worked with Microsoft to develop that name. From a creative standpoint, we probably developed 3,500 directions, or what we call concepts, at [the first stage]. We worked them to down to 700 to 800 candidates that had, on a continuum, some strength to a lot of strength. And through the legal process and linguistic vetting process, we ended up with about 50 or 60 names to show the client.
CIO.com: One of your more famous names is the BlackBerry. Did you foresee how big the name would eventually become in terms of pop culture and adoption in the business world?
Placek: About becoming the BlackBerry nation? I don't think so, in the beginning. When we first met with the RIM team, they came out here to Sausalito, and they put the device down in front of me on the conference table. I have to say: I really remember that; I remember being quite impressed by the device.
We wanted to give them a great name, which could really help them. At that time, they were going up against the pagers, and everybody had a pager. They were going to compete with all the telephone operators and providers. So they came thinking that they needed a really good descriptive name because they didn't have any money. We actually said the opposite was
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