And the Brand Plays On: Good Reading for All

Credit: Laura Greene

You may not be launching your own multinational corporation, but as someone on the wanting-paying-getting-and-having end of things, it's important for you to understand why certain brand names can entice you to buy, fly, drive, or otherwise consume -- and then consume some more.

The Making of a Name provides excellent cocktail party gossip and classroom fodder by analyzing brand names both good and awful, as well as famous and infamous, explaining the naming process and detailing the fate of brands that succeeded (sometimes for unlikely reasons), as well as those that failed (ditto). You'll read about the millions of dollars FedEx saved by changing its name from Federal Express, the Royal Mail's absurd rebranding efforts in Britain, the distasteful definition of Enron's original name (it was Enteron, also a fancy name for guts), and the true story behind Chevrolet's apocryphal Nova branding blunder.

Linguists will enjoy forays into the forest of English language, including a brief primer on metrical feet; popular cultural examples of synecdoche, mondegreens, and chiasmus; and a discussion of the effect of using words that end in a versus o. By taking us inside the process, psychology, and primacy of brand names, authors Steve Rivkin and Fraser Sutherland provide a tool for "reading" the almost invisible yet omnipresent text that pulls us in, or pushes us away, every day.

The Making of a Name: The Inside Story of the Brands We Buy
Steve Rivkin and Fraser Sutherland,Oxford University Press | 275 pages | $28