What's the (exclamation) point, SOLUT!

Granted, this company is not well known, or particularly interesting, but we can't pass up a bad name when we run across it. In our sights today is Duracorp (hello 1950's!!) who have announced that they are changing their name, logo and tagline, all of which is included in one graphic on the right.
Some comments about the new name "SOLUT!".

Erik O’Neil, Vice President of Sales, says “only our name has changed to better reflect the brand essence of our growing company, and we are committed to responding quickly to the packaging needs of our customers with creative solutions” OK, now how is that?!!! We are of the opinion that reasons for name changes have to make sense and not be some blah blah blah MBA speak about brand essence. How about "Duracorp frankly just bored us to death and made us sound like a 1950's company out of a business management textbook, and the best thing we could come up with unfortunately was SOLUT!."

The exclamation mark in both the name and the tagline? Why is that? Are we supposed to be excited about buying your thermoformed paper products ? Does your receptionist answer the phone with an loud cheerleaderish "SOLUT!"? Leaving aside the unnecessary exclamation mark in the name, it becomes truly superfluous in the tagline (see SOLUT!ONS) unless it is a clue to where the hell the word SOLUT! came from. In fact, the press release announcing the new name says "the new name is derived from the word ‘solutions’, and better reflects the core essence of the Company—responding quickly to provide creative solutions for the packaging needs of its customers." Here and we thought thermoformed paper products was the core essence of the company. How about THERMO! or PROD!

Compounding the artificial excitement is the all caps name. As we know, USING ALL CAPS IS LIKE YELLING, SO NOW WE ARE YELLING THE NAME OF THE COMPANY EXCITEDLY --SOLUT!

Let's talk about the tagline, also in all caps, FORMING SUSTAINABLE SOLUT!ONS. The only thing missing is an exclamation point at the end. Well, that's not the only thing missing. It's also missing the mark. The company claims the new tagline is "to focus attention on its distinctive abilities to form uniquely designed paper based packaging solutions." zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz How about, Not your mama's thermoformed paper products!, or something that elicits some emotion or inspiration.

Watch for the letter from V&S Vin & Sprit Aktiebolag's counsel (maker's of Absolut Vodka ), they are trademark protection pit bulls that go after anything sounding remotely like their name regardless of what your goods or services are.

We dislike the injudicious use of exclamation points. We DO enjoy the judicious use of them in, let's say, the Bloom logo though. In a search of the USPTO database, we found 35,562 marks using !, 822 using !!, 355 using !!!, 10 using !!!!, 4 using !!!!!, 3 using !!!!!! and 2 using !!!!!!!!. Yikes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, does SOLUT! pass the Eat My Words Scratch Test?

SCRATCH - scratch if it has any of these deal-breakers
Spelling-challenged - YES !
Copycat – similar to competitor's names - Not that we can tell
Random – disconnected from brand - YES!, although they did try!
Annoying – hidden meaning, forced - YES!
Tame – flat, uninspired - YES! Despite the exclamation!!!!!!
Curse of Knowledge –No, it's just cursed!!
Hard-to-pronounce -Not really, but once you pronounce you are still in the dark!!!!!

So, if nailing just one of these is a deal-breaker, hitting on as many of these mistake makes it an instant inductee into the Name Shame Hall of Fame and a leading contender for our Head Scratcher of the Year contest.

TO VENT: Send your contender(s) for The Name Shame Hall of Fame to nameshame @ eatmywords dot com. (We won’t sell your email address to spammers, we promise.)