Read these three names – do they sound familiar?
1. Declan Mcmanus.
2. Ralph Lipschitz.
3. James Osterberg Jr.
Never heard of them? Actually you have – because all three overcame obstacles to marketing success.

As a rule, changing a company, brand or product name is risky business for marketers. But sometimes it can be necessary, and it can make an immediate measurable improvement in marketing. A recent Wall Street Journal article reports how some luxury hotels have increased their business in hard times simply by dropping one word -“resort” – from their names, in response to corporate sensitivity about extravagant spending on conventions and meetings.

What were they thinking?
They were right. But many marketers change names for the wrong reasons.
•    Brinks, the home security company, became Broadview. This one was necessary because they had to give up the Brinks name. But did they really have to choose such brand blandness?
•    Here in Chicago, we saw the Sears Tower become the Willis Tower (but you can call it “Big Willie”)– ego-tripping on the part of the new owner of the (former) world’s tallest building.
•    In an exercise of inexplicable corporate silliness, Radio Shack changed its name to The Shack. Now I think of a rundown building, or maybe a basketball player.
•    And in yet another demonstration of high-tech business mumbo-jumbo, Gavitec AG became NeoMedia Europe AG.

The Ballantyne Hotel & Lodge and the Renaissance Orlando – neither of them named “resort” any more – are only two examples of name change for the right reasons.
•    The New York Times reports how a venerable Canadian history magazine had to change its name to dodge online porn filters. (Bet you’ll click through to this one.)
•    A detailed case study shows how leading non-profit changed its name to Legal Momentum, to overcome confusion about its mission.
•    A professor at the University of Florida makes a case for marketing delicious (but negatively-perceived) goat meat as “cabrito.”

As for Declan, Ralph and James Jr:  Celebrities become brands. The wrong name is a barrier to brand success. So to market themselves more successfully, they became Elvis Costello, Ralph Lauren and Iggy Pop.

After seeing last week’s Ad Age story about Brink’s Home Security changing its name, three things struck me:

1. Spending $120 million over two years to replace its current name with Broadview Security seems like an awful lot of money.
2. The home security business hasn’t changed much.
3. Whatever they spent to get the name and logo was probably too much.

My first thought when reading the article was that Brink’s is probably the best name you can have in the security business. It conjures up images of armored cars and gun-toting guards watching over mountains of cash. Not a bad connection when you are talking about selling a service to protect a homeowner’s most important stuff and family. So why change? The article really didn’t say. It turns out that they have to. The home security business has been divested by Brink’s through the creation of a company called CFL and with stock handed out to the Brink’s shareholders. The new company is currently licensing the Brink’s name and will have use of it only until October 31, 2011.  Hence the urgency. That’s  a lot of yard signs and window decals to change out.

Another issue causing the urgency and the high level of spending is that the home security business is a cut-throat, sales-driven driven business where participants will spending just about anything to sign up a customer. The reason for the marketing hardball is that each customer represents a valuable prize: a recurring revenue stream. Sign them up once and get cash every month. We really saw the attractiveness of the business model during the home security consolidation in the 1990′s. Before then home monitoring had been pretty much a Mom ‘n Pop business. When folks with big check books realized the way the numbers would add up, they traveled the country gobbling up any small home security company with a few thousand customers. And they paid a lot for them.

A lot of these recurring revenue streams will be up for grabs. The challenge Broadview (nee Brink’s) will face is a full court press by ADT to poach customers. Home security salesmen make the “Glengarry Glen Ross” crew look like a bunch of missionaries. Sure the wireless touchpad is free, but they’ll find a way to up charge and add on until you have no idea what you are paying.

Naming by focus group

Speaking of ideas, it seems as though focus groups played a big role in creating the name Broadview. It’s kind of bland and not very memorable. But it probably got a lot of votes when put up on the rail in front of the one way window. That seems to be the trend with product and brand naming. Names of late appear to be condensations of the benefit. Guess it won’t be long until “Whiter Whites Laundry Detergent” appears on shelves. Hey I better copyright it.

Later.