Marketing Bentley

 This week, the New York Times covered the naming of a new business - Justin and Ben Smith pick a name for their media start-up, March 22, 2022 . Justin Smith is a former chief executive for Bloomberg Media and Ben Smith is  former media columnist for the New York Times, and together they've created a new media startup that will cover general interest news in an "experimental" storytelling format as well as provide talent booking services, literary agent services, and representation of journalists. They are setting their sights high and aspire to global relevance. With that in mind, they have named their startup Semafor, a trademarkable derivative of the word semaphore. Semaphore in English is generally nautical in nature, and refers specifically to a system of sending messages by holding the arms or two flags or poles in certain positions according to an alphabetic code both as a noun and as a verb. The word started its etymological life as two Greek words, sēma 's...

 Branding is the cornerstone of any company: good branding creates a relationship with the customer and memorable touchstones, bad branding is forgettable at best. It makes sense that corporations would want to protect their branding as much as possible. Apple in particular is notable for being on the offensive when it comes to possible infringements on their visual territory. However, in an article from the New York Times on March 11 - Apps and Oranges: Behind Apple's "Bullying" on Trademarks - describes how Apple has filed 215 suits against brands using the word "apple," the image of an apple, or other stemmed fruits "between 2019 and last year [...] according to the Tech Transparency Project, a nonprofit watchdog. That’s more than the estimated 136 trademark oppositions that Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook and Google collectively filed in the same period, the group said." In an ideal world, the system in place rewards strong branding and prohibits bad ...

In the US as a whole, we've ditched cable television for many reasons: it was expensive and micro-charged, had specific hardware that was time-consuming to maintain, and a frankly overwhelming number of channels. Streaming seemed like the optimal solution, providing easy access to a central hub of media that didn't require additional set up past a username, password and credit card number, and the ability to play media at will reduced the need to trawl through hundreds of channels.  The number of US Americans who don't use cable or satellite TV has plummeted to 56% according to a Pew Research report from March 2021 . While we are eager to ditch the outdated TV services, streaming companies seem all too eager to remake them, as streaming services proliferate at a mind-boggling rate. While the big names still hold some sway, most of them are becoming increasingly niche: Netflix, for example, is moving from being an archive of sorts and focusing on new "Netflix Originals....