I Backrubbed where I can find vintage Pocketlinks and Marufukus from the 90s and turns out, people are selling them on AuctionWeb.
We love naming. Our robust strategic process generates great, on-brand names, but sometimes, the perfect name just emerges and POW there it is!
We don’t know the story behind all of these names that didn’t survive, but it sure is interesting!
Nintendo started off as Marufuku. Can you imagine?
Ebay was originally AuctionWeb. More descriptive (what does geographical location have to do with online commerce, anyway?) but boring!
Google was Backrub. “I’m gonna Backrub that and get back to you.” Glad this isn’t the case. We all know by now that Google originates from “googol,” a mathematical definition for a number represented by 1 followed by 100 zeros.
Blackberry was Pocketlink or Megamail. Those names make sense but have no personality.
We are glad that Kettle reached out to Global Brand Works to come up with a name more compelling than Kettle Vegetable Chips! We came up with the name UPROOTED, and it was a great project.