Literally Eating My Words at Spoon Me

In town for Spoon Me founder Ryan Combe's wedding over the weekend (see next post), thanks to the GPS in my rental car, I managed to hit two Spoon Me locations (and eat Spoon Me at the wedding) in less than 8 hours. Spoon Me is the name that Eat My Words is the most proud of creating. Ryan and his partners David and Wayne have built a cult brand that transcends frozen yogurt and has become one of the hottest franchises on the planet, with projections of 100 new stores within the next 18 months. Spoon Me is a stellar example of how a brand can take a name and run with it. (That's why we call them names with "legs".) From the best-selling "Shut Up and Spoon Me" t-shirts to the "No Spooning on Sundays" hours sign, to the Spoon Me movie quote graffiti ("You had me at Spoon Me") in the bathrooms, there are endless ways to extend the brand through wordplay. Here are photos from my afternoon visit to the original store in Salt Lake City and my late night visit to one of the new super mod locations in Sandy, Utah. Thanks to everyone at Spoon Me for treating me like a celebrity. Can't wait to come back!

Announcing a fresh new name for Second Chance Coffee: I HAVE A BEAN

When some people thought the name Second Chance Coffee implied that the beans were recycled, the founders knew it was time for a name change. The name Second Chance stemmed from the mission of the company - to help ex-offenders help themselves by providing gainful post-prison employment, job training and a community of acceptance. The company positively impacts the spiritual, social and economic condition of their employees, their families and the communities in which they live. All that and they make what many people say is the smoothest cup of coffee they have ever tasted. (It's so smooth, most of their customers drink it black.) Second Chance wanted us to create a memorable name that they could monetize, like we had done for frozen yogurt franchise Spoon Me and the chain of laundromats we named Stuff a Sock in It. After reviewing dozens of names, the top contenders were narrowed down to Happy Joe Lucky, I Dream of Coffee, Thank God It's Coffee, and I Have a Bean. We felt that I Have a Bean made the biggest emotional connection and had the strongest potential to make our client rich through the sale of t-shirts, mugs and coffee canisters. The client agreed. The tagline we created, "Inspired Coffee" helps set the tone that the company is inspiring people to live better lives. We are thrilled with the package design, which was created by Carrie Dufour and her talented team at Sloat Design. We snatched up www.ihaveabean.com for $9.95 and the site and brand officially launch on June 1st. Until then, follow them on Twitter, at I Have a Bean.

Shut Up & Spoon Me - Now Available Online

It seemed as if Hell would freeze over in frozen yogurt before this happened, but after months of anticipation, Spoon Me loot is finally for sale online. Now you can buy your own "Shut Up and Spoon Me" t-shirt and stop trying to steal mine. As most of you know (because we talk about it every chance we get), Eat My Words named Spoon Me, which has become the hottest frozen yogurt franchise on the planet.

Spoon Me has turned their name into cold hard cash by slapping it on everything from bumper stickers to booty shorts. We love making our clients rich and are proud to be the only naming firm that monetizes names through merchandise. (How many t-shirts do you think Spoon Me would have sold if they stuck with their original name, Zenyo?)

Check out the Spoon Me store to see all of the stylish fashions.

More client love for Eat My Words

We recently renamed a coffee company with what is our most merchandisable name since Spoon Me. We can't let the name out of the bean bag yet, but in the meantime, here's a gushing testimonial from the client, Pete...

As a startup company, it was important for the Second Chance Coffee Company to find a professional naming company that was as creative, energetic and focused on providing real value, as we are passionate about our business and mission. We have the right company name but "Second Chance" does not work so well for a coffee product that is roasted and delivered fresh the same day!

When our research turned up Eat My Words as a naming company that serves up "fresh names & taglines to go" we were interested. A little digging into the EMW website made it clear that this was no ordinary naming firm. This website, unlike a bunch of others, was clear and understandable, with none of the marketing mumbo jumbo we'd been wading through elsewhere. The simply powerful "Smile and Scratch Test" prompted us to give Alexandra a call. By the end of the conversation, it was clear that her fresh and engaging approach to naming was what we were looking for. Alexandra's enthusiasm, passion and track record convinced us that we had found the right solution to our naming conundrum, and the execution of the project has proven that we were correct.

"Good Value" is an understatement. Eat My Words has been very creative, energetic, and professional in every aspect of our project. I would not hesitate to hire EMW and Alexandra again.

Pete Leonard

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Keep an eye on our blog to find out what we named "Pete's coffee."

What we all need is a Tightwad Bank. Take that WaMu!

We didn't name Tightwad Bank, but we kind of wish we did.

Especially these days, depositors might opt for a fiscally constipated bank. Granted it is one small branch at the moment, but what fun to brand it for the next stage. They are already selling shirts, hats and mugs. That's great, but we think they could make bank with branded Tightwad Visa cards.

This name hits all cylinders on our SMILE & SCRATCH Test.

SMILE - qualities of a powerful name
Simple – one easy-to-understand concept
Meaningful – your customers instantly "get it"
Imagery – visually evocative - creates a mental picture
Legs – carries the brand, lends itself to wordplay
Emotional – empowers, entertains, engages, enlightens

It also follows our EMW=ROI formula.

We believe that a name is an investment that should promise many happy returns for years to come by producing Return On Investment in the following ways:

• Generates buzz without spending advertising dollars
• PR magnet -- editors love our names (Hello, free PR!)
• Instantly likeable, creating affinity for your brand - people talk about our names
• Its evocative nature easily allows expansion into future brand extensions while retaining its original charm
• No time is wasted telling people how to spell it, pronounce it, or what it means
• Creates differentiation, which builds brand recognition and visibility– an EMW name gets noticed in a sea of sameness
• Emotionally connects with your target making an indelible imprint and inspiring loyalty
• Rich in wordplay for editorial coverage, marketing materials, tradeshow themes, launch ideas and more
• In essence, the name becomes a “product” that can be creatively monetized through merchandise and licensing further expanding exposure, with people paying you to advertise your brand
• Vivid imagery is ripe for eye-catching identity designStays fresh and vibrant and never becomes dated - an EMW name has an indefinite shelf life
• Makes your company and its products trendsetters, and makes you look like a rockstar
• Creates an improved image for your overall brand
• Lets you sleep at night knowing your EMW name is working around the clock

So, we were pleased when the TheStreet.com gets the Eat My Words way and reported on the strength of Tightwad Bank name in their words as a " media magnet and marketing engine, resulting in a flurry of new accounts".

We're opening our account tomorrow.

Here is the article in its entirety:

Small Business Center

Tightwad Bank: A Lesson in Branding

Entrepreneur.com

10/13/08 - 12:29 PM EDT

Elizabeth Wilson of Entrepreneur.com



Sometimes it's all in a name. Six-month-old Tightwad Bank in Tightwad, Mo., uses the double-take factor to drum up business without even trying. It hasn't spent a cent on advertising, yet it can rattle off personal and business accounts from California, New York and even Carrot River, Saskatchewan, Canada.

It's a bank without a Web site (although it plans to offer online banking by the end of 2008), and its 112 accounts already exceed the town's population of 63. Passing the town's name on to the bank was the draw for Don Higdon, the entrepreneur and chairman of the bank, when he purchased the then-shuttered building last year.

Indeed, the unusual name has acted as a media magnet and marketing engine, resulting in a flurry of new accounts. However, the last thing Higdon intends to do is open Tightwad Bank branches cheek by jowl across America.

Instead, he'll consider a few additional Tightwad branches while maintaining his current focus on leveraging the power of the name to encourage tightwads across the country to open accounts at the two branches he presently chairs.

"It's a difficult name to forget," Higdon says. "You typically have two reactions: One is 'What? What is your name?' You're not going to get that customer. And the other [is] there's a smile on their face and they're just dying to open an account. I think that's the kind of excitement from a name that a lot of companies want to have."

He says any reaction to a name, good or bad, can help a business.

"When you can get a measurable reaction simply from a name, your challenge of converting them to a customer is diminished substantially; then all you have to do is talk about price or size or location, and location just isn't an issue anymore."

Higdon, a career banker, his wife, and his business partner Jeff McCalmon decided to pour all of their collective personal assets into purchasing Reading State Bank in Kansas in 2000. They purchased Tightwad Bank as a second branch in 2007, and opened it six months ago. At the same time, they changed the name of Reading State Bank in Kansas to Tightwad Bank. Since Tightwad Bank opened, the bank's deposits have grown from $11 million to $13 million at both branches Higdon chairs. The newer Tightwad assets are worth $1.7 million.

"This bank in 2000 was in a lot of ways a start-up. It was a little country bank; the town had shrunk because of technological and societal changes and demographic changes. It was only $4 million in total assets in the beginning, prior to doing the Tightwad branch conversion," Higdon says, referring to the Reading, Kansas branch when they first opened it in 2000.

Name Recognition

He's well aware of the pros and cons of using an uncommon name in business.

"People see the name and a number of them say, "Is that a real bank, and you're FDIC insured?' We go 'yes, yes, yes' . . . so the unique name gives us opportunity that other banks don't have; the flip side of that is the credibility issue," Higdon says.

With a name like Tightwad, which has negative connotations like stinginess, Higdon says they're pushing positive interpretations of the word, letting consumers know this is a bank that's "going to deliver real goods and services in a cost-efficient manner that would be consistent with someone who's prudent and responsible with their finances."

"We're going to appeal to a fairly narrow scope of potential customers," Higdon says. "Some people just won't get it and will have no interest doing business with a bank of that name, and I would suggest to you that they're probably the more high-brow or snobby types. The others totally embrace it."

Rita McGrath is a professor at Columbia University's Business School, where she teaches MBA and executive MBA courses in strategy and innovation. She says using a different kind of name is a "strategy that's used by many firms to add an empathic or emotional appeal to their products that enhances the basic functionality of what they have to sell."

"A quirky name like this can often provide valuable differentiation for a company, particularly in a relatively commoditized (and, to be frank, boring) industry like banking," McGrath says.

She thinks it will be interesting to see whether the name becomes even more salient during these tough economic times, "when being a tightwad may well be seen as more honorable and intelligent than being a silly, credit-consuming spendthrift."

"I bet there are a lot of banks who wished more of their customers were proud to be tightwads today, for sure," McGrath says.

Tightwad isn't the only bank with a strange, name-brand appeal. There's also the Fifth Third Bank (FITB Quote - Cramer on FITB - Stock Picks), a Midwestern bank headquartered in Ohio. Higdon's heard of the bank. "It's kind of a weird name, but it sets them apart," he says. "You remember that name, unlike so many that are called first national bank or community bank and on down the list."

And there are plenty of strange town names to come by in the U.S. Many of them are geographically close to Tightwad: Wisdom and Peculiar in Missouri, and Fairplay, Colo. There are also Rough and Ready in California and Happyland, Okla.

One of Tightwad's customers is Henry Leonard, who was a career banker before deciding to take over Marthabelle's Printing and Mailing, the printing business his mother started in Kansas City, Mo. Leonard enjoys a bank with a lively name, and that sends a clear message about his "tightwadness" to his business's vendors.

"Too many [banks] are so dry anyway . . . and there is a bit of levity in sending someone a check that says 'Tightwad.' I think that part of it is fun. I tell people when they get ready to charge me, 'be easy on me 'cause I'm a poor kid,' so I hand them a check that says 'Tightwad,' and they hand it back like, 'riiight.'"

He uses the checks with vendors and for repair services to send a message that he's serious about not being overcharged. "Those are the guys who can really run you a lot of cost."

The checks are also a conversation starter. They get a reaction from his vendors and customers. "You send them a check and they're like, 'What is this doggarn thing?' and they're liable to call you up."

He even muses about incorporating the 'tightwad' theme into his business a bit more. For example, he's thought about creating a penny-pinching logo for his business. "Like a Monopoly guy running around with a bag of money. Guess I couldn't do that, though."

Tightwad Bank has great success with its own money bag logo. It sells items in the lobby after drawing anywhere from two to more than a dozen carloads of people who pull off the highway each day to snap pictures next to the large, white Tightwad sign. Available for purchase are $25 to $500 gift cards to "give to that stingy uncle," Higdon says, or a $14 ball cap, $30 polo shirt, $11 T-shirt, $9 mug or $7 cozy.

In the end, if business success isn't in the stars for Tightwad Bank, Higdon has a backup plan. Before he bought it, the building was a branch of UMB Bank, which closed in January 2007. Already equipped with the old signage, they'll call it United Missouri Beverage "and make it a drive-through liquor store," Higdon says.

While "Tightwad" on a check might not appeal to everybody, for those it does appeal to, it probably does so strongly, Columbia University's McGrath says.

"That will have second-order effects, such as making them more likely to be loyal, less willing to consider competing offers and more likely to spread word-of-mouth around about their bank."

Frigid, Mixin' Vixens Stuff a Sock In It

If you guessed that Frigid, Mixin' Vixens, and Stuff a Sock In It are all cool brand names created by Eat My Words, congratulations! Bonus points if you figured out that Frigid is the name of a gourmet ice cream store, Mixin' Vixens is an all-women bartender service, and Stuff a Sock In It is a laundromat. When you see or hear an "Eat My Words name," you'll never ask what it means, how to pronounce it, or "What were they smoking?!" Our super-likable names make powerful emotional connections, build instant brand affinity, and make our clients rich. Yes, rich. We are the only naming firm that monetizes names. For instance, we turned the name Frigid into cold hard cash for our client by creating a t-shirt for them that says, "Not tonight dear, I have an ice cream headache." Ca-ching! Our Stuff a Sock In It client will be slapping their new logo on laundry bags, t-shirts, and other merchandise geared at their college kid customers. Ca-ching!

Of course, the client who is monetizing the bejesus out of their Eat My Words name is Spoon Me, the frozen yogurt store that is one of the hottest franchises in the country. They are selling Spoon Me pajamas, booty shorts, underwear, baby clothes, stickers, buttons and of course t-shirts with slogans we created like "Shut Up and Spoon Me." Ca-ching! Ca-ching! Ca-ching!

Would someone buy a t-shirt with your company or product name on it and pay you to advertise your brand? To see if your name has potential, take the Eat My Words SMILE & SCRATCH Test, which was recently featured in The Wall Street Journal.

On the Radio - Alexandra Explains Money Making Marketing Method

Alexandra's latest appearance on PR 101 Radio had her discussing how to monetize your company name and how to avoid costly naming mistakes. (Listen here). She spoke at length about one of Eat My Words favorite naming clients, "Spoon Me" and how they have very creatively and successfully used their name to, as Alexandra puts it, "have the customer pay you to advertise your company".

The reason this works so well for Spoon Me is the rich wordplay surrounding the name. They have Spoon Me baby clothes, shirts and our favorite - pajama's. When they were preparing to open, instead of the usual banner saying "Opening Soon", theirs said "Spooning Soon". Other uses are the "No Shoes, No Shirt, No Spoon" signs in their stores, the "Spoon the Chef" barbecue aprons and bumper stickers that say "If you are riding this close you may as well Spoon Me". The value of all this free advertising and increase in brand awareness is staggering. While monetization will not work for all businesses, those in the retail and service industries can benefit from this unusual Money Making Marketing Method. Certainly t-shirt sales should not be the primary test in deciding on a name, but potential monetization and free advertising can be considered a lucrative fringe benefit.

How your name can generate buzz and bacon

In today's freaky economy, advertising budgets are facing extinction and marketing dollars are being stretched like carnival taffy. Your name has to do more, say more, and work harder than ever before. Without a massive ad campaign to drill it in (think: Head On), consumers cannot remember brand names that are tame, tired, copycat, spelling-challenged, or have hidden meanings. Now more than ever, it's critical that your name is memorable, meaningful, sticky, has legs, speaks volumes, and can pay for itself. You know you have a winning name with ROI when it...

Generates buzz without spending advertising dollars

Is instantly likeable, creating affinity for your brand

Has strong differentiation for brand-recognition

Emotionally connects with your target, inspiring loyalty

Stays fresh and vibrant, never becomes dated

Positions you as a trendsetter, increasing your credibility

Is rich in wordplay, allowing for brand extensions while retaining the name's original charm

Can be monetized through merchandise & licensing, with people paying you to advertise your brand

Learn more about how a powerful name can cut the fat and bring home the bacon.