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AMD HardOn!!!
Saw this at overclockers.com
"You Want A Name?
Ed Stroligo - 1/29/02
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AMDZone reports that AMD has trademarked a number of new names, presumably potential names for future processors.
These names are:
Forton
Metaron
Multeon
Vanton
Opteron
These names seem more suited as names for subatomic particles or for characters in Japanese cartoons than for CPUs.
Even worse, AMD actually pays people money for this.
OK, AMD, enough is enough. Here's some free market research and a name you can use without any fee or royalty at all.
Market Research
Your market largely consists of young men. These young men use their computers as symbols of (or substitutes for) their maleness and virility, and find product names which evoke these traits highly appealing. Ask any video card manufacturer.
For some reason, the powers-that-be in your company are orally fixated on processor names that end with -on.
Sorry, but when it comes to symbolizing maleness and virility, words ending in -on are a bit ambiguous.
Sure, words like champion and demon and cannon and marathon end in -on, but so do less-than-macho words like bonbon and menstruation and moron and ovulation and simpleton, and worst of all, castration and emasculation.
However, there is one word ending in -on that has no such ambiguity. Indeed, it defines maleness and virility.
What is that word?
HardOn.
You don't think you get enough publicity, AMD? Name your next processor that, and I guarantee you free media coverage like you've never seen before. Leno, Letterman, SNL, every morning radio jock out there, prime-time comedy shows; they'll keel over coming up with new ways to talk about it. Not to mention Howard.
News shows? Journalists love freak shows. How many six o'clock news shows are going to mention an Opteron? Maybe 5%, in the business segment, and then they'll just mention it. Call it a HardOn, and you'll get a segment dedicated to it.
And that's just the official media. Imagine the word of mouth! What self-respecting guy would buy a Pentium IV when he could get his hands on his own HardOn?
Be honest, anybody reading this has probably already come up with at least five ways to use this in a sentence. Ever do that with the word "Celeron?"
You'll get name recognition beyond belief. Your brand name will get mentioned in billions and billions of conversations that have nothing to do with computers. Can you say that about the word "Athlon?"
I tell you, a couple months after this, people will walk into stores and say, "Intel who?"
The name is a keeper, and will stay good for a long, long time. If you don't think so, just look at Die Hard II or III or IV.
What About Women, Ed?
Oh, you think maybe a few of them might get a little turned-off by this? Maybe not as many as you think. After all, why should they be turned-off by something that normally turns them on?
OK, maybe many might not find that the most feminine-sounding thing in the world. No problem!
Product differentiation to the rescue! Just make a bunch with a pink organic covering and call it a FeminOn. Given that kind of lead, I bet OEMs desperate to keep Dell from taking over the world will build computers around that theme. Think I'm crazy? This is already happening with mobile phones. I tell you, sales will boom.
You can even take care of the real man-haters with a StrapOn. AMD makes about three separate batches, anyway. They should have no problem covering all the bases.
Ridiculous?
I don't know, it doesn't seem to be inherently more ridiculous than half the advertising out there right now. Just bolder and more brazen. Well, actually, to put in more manly terms, it would take something intimately associated with the abovementioned name which I don't think any corporate suit has.
Try to tell me with a straight face that a picture of a lady's curving belly to sell a Radeon makes any more sense than this.
There are plenty of perfectly good English words ending in -on that would suit AMD just as well as these fake fabrications. The problem with using real words is that they say and mean something, while fake ones don't.
And that's a shame.
Ed Stroligo - 1/29/02
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AMDZone reports that AMD has trademarked a number of new names, presumably potential names for future processors.
These names are:
Forton
Metaron
Multeon
Vanton
Opteron
These names seem more suited as names for subatomic particles or for characters in Japanese cartoons than for CPUs.
Even worse, AMD actually pays people money for this.
OK, AMD, enough is enough. Here's some free market research and a name you can use without any fee or royalty at all.
Market Research
Your market largely consists of young men. These young men use their computers as symbols of (or substitutes for) their maleness and virility, and find product names which evoke these traits highly appealing. Ask any video card manufacturer.
For some reason, the powers-that-be in your company are orally fixated on processor names that end with -on.
Sorry, but when it comes to symbolizing maleness and virility, words ending in -on are a bit ambiguous.
Sure, words like champion and demon and cannon and marathon end in -on, but so do less-than-macho words like bonbon and menstruation and moron and ovulation and simpleton, and worst of all, castration and emasculation.
However, there is one word ending in -on that has no such ambiguity. Indeed, it defines maleness and virility.
What is that word?
HardOn.
You don't think you get enough publicity, AMD? Name your next processor that, and I guarantee you free media coverage like you've never seen before. Leno, Letterman, SNL, every morning radio jock out there, prime-time comedy shows; they'll keel over coming up with new ways to talk about it. Not to mention Howard.
News shows? Journalists love freak shows. How many six o'clock news shows are going to mention an Opteron? Maybe 5%, in the business segment, and then they'll just mention it. Call it a HardOn, and you'll get a segment dedicated to it.
And that's just the official media. Imagine the word of mouth! What self-respecting guy would buy a Pentium IV when he could get his hands on his own HardOn?
Be honest, anybody reading this has probably already come up with at least five ways to use this in a sentence. Ever do that with the word "Celeron?"
You'll get name recognition beyond belief. Your brand name will get mentioned in billions and billions of conversations that have nothing to do with computers. Can you say that about the word "Athlon?"
I tell you, a couple months after this, people will walk into stores and say, "Intel who?"
The name is a keeper, and will stay good for a long, long time. If you don't think so, just look at Die Hard II or III or IV.
What About Women, Ed?
Oh, you think maybe a few of them might get a little turned-off by this? Maybe not as many as you think. After all, why should they be turned-off by something that normally turns them on?
OK, maybe many might not find that the most feminine-sounding thing in the world. No problem!
Product differentiation to the rescue! Just make a bunch with a pink organic covering and call it a FeminOn. Given that kind of lead, I bet OEMs desperate to keep Dell from taking over the world will build computers around that theme. Think I'm crazy? This is already happening with mobile phones. I tell you, sales will boom.
You can even take care of the real man-haters with a StrapOn. AMD makes about three separate batches, anyway. They should have no problem covering all the bases.
Ridiculous?
I don't know, it doesn't seem to be inherently more ridiculous than half the advertising out there right now. Just bolder and more brazen. Well, actually, to put in more manly terms, it would take something intimately associated with the abovementioned name which I don't think any corporate suit has.
Try to tell me with a straight face that a picture of a lady's curving belly to sell a Radeon makes any more sense than this.
There are plenty of perfectly good English words ending in -on that would suit AMD just as well as these fake fabrications. The problem with using real words is that they say and mean something, while fake ones don't.
And that's a shame.
.
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