The Name Game

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, March, 2000 by Elizabeth Gardner

WONDER WHAT'S BEHIND SOME OF THE LATEST OBSCURE, OFFBEAT OR DOWNRIGHT BIZARRE MAGAZINE NAMES? SOME PUBLISHERS SAY SKIPPING CLARITY IN FAVOR OF PERSONALITY AND DESIGN POSSIBILITIES IS THE WAY TO GRAB AN AUDIENCE.

So you think you have a great idea for a new magazine! Whatcha gonna call it?

Drawing a blank? Naming a baby is easier by far than naming a nascent magazine. With a baby, at least, you don't have to worry about how the name is going to look as a logo, or whether the corresponding Internet domain is available. You don't have to consider newsstand appeal. And it's not a marketing disaster or a trademark issue if there are three other kids on the block with the same name. The worst that can happen is that your neighbors will think you have no imagination.

With a baby, you also don't have to worry too much about whether the name describes what's inside. And in desperation or the struggle for attention, some magazine publishers have quit worrying about this, too. Instead, they're going for the evocative, the meaningful-only-to-their-market, or the just plain obscure. If they pursued the same philosophy as parents, they'd be naming their children Moon Unit 2 or Dharma.

There's George, of course. And Mirabella. They've been around long enough that we've forgotten we ever wondered what they were about. But Twist? Or Spoon? Schwing? What are those about?

"The product gives the name meaning, not the other way around," says Lisa Lombardi, editor in chief of Twist, a 1998 Bauer Publishing launch aimed at teenage girls that competes with more descriptive titles like Seventeen, Cosmo Girl! and Teen. "We were looking for something active, energetic and fresh--like a fresh twist on favorite subjects." The occasional reader e-mail complimenting the "cute name confirms that they did the right thing, she says.

How about Spoon? This ultra-glossy 1998 coffee-table quarterly is for couples leading the high life, or at least interested in reading about it. Publisher Julie Haus-Alkire and her colleagues considered many other titles, like Mate (too cheesy and mass-market) and Jack and Jill (too corny, and already in use by an established children's magazine). "We meant 'spoon' in the sense of caressing or cuddling, but some people interpret it as 'silver spoon,' which works to our benefit," she says. They've wrapped the title into a feature called "Two spoons," a profile of a celebrity couple that runs each issue. And there's an art-direction plus: The two O's make a lovely logo as interlocking wedding rings.

Convey an attitude

Schwing, which made its debut in 1999, is about "pumping more fun into golf," says publisher Kevin Thatcher. "Somebody thought it up and we laughed at it, but we kept coming back to it." Despite, or perhaps because of, its associations with Mike Myers' "Wayne's World" (where, you'll remember, Wayne and his buddy Garth are in the habit of shouting "Schwing!" and motioning their hands upward at the mention or sight of babe-o-licious women), the title has done well among younger-generation golfers and even with the over-50 crowd. The only people who haven't particularly cottoned to the magazine are those Thatcher characterizes as the "uptight" 30-to 45-year-olds.

The title has also caught the attention of the media. Thatcher says Schwing's launch got more coverage than any of his company's other products. It also made the list of the year's 30 most notable launches, compiled by Professor Samir ("Mr. Magazine") Husni of the University of Mississippi, under the criterion "so bizarre it had to be included."

Schwing's publishing company, High Speed Productions, pursued the same from-the-hip policy in naming its two skateboarding titles, Slap and Thrasher. Neither screams "skateboarcling" the way Skateboarding Magazine might, but Thatcher says they create the atmosphere he was looking for.

Go for personality

Ira Bachrach, founder of NameLab, San Francisco, which brought the world Acura, Compaq and Zillions (the kids' money-management magazine from Consumer Reports, originally named Penny Power), says the personality of the name is more important than its meaning, or lack of meaning. "You could call a magazine Six as long as you're expressing a personality that's potent in the context," he says. "You need the potential subscribers to automatically assign it to a set." They may not know why they understand it, but as long as they do, the name is an effective one.

Bachrach says being frankly descriptive works well only with a tightly targeted audience that knows it wants your publication (Working Mother, say, or Semiconductor Intern ational). In a larger universe, it can be much more difficult to capture the center of attention without a clear personality.

Adam Moss, who edits The New York Times Magazine, used to head the award-winning but now defunct New York City magazine 7 Days. He says personality, durability and the capacity to make a strong logo are the most important attributes of a good name--but the name itself doesn't matter a whole lot. "People see the name, they internalize it, and they forget about it," he says. "It becomes part of the furniture if it's a good name." The title 7 Days was lifted from a publication Moss worked at very early in his career, which by then was out of business and didn't need it anymore. "We struggled for a long time to name that magazine," he says. "We considered Night and Day, but it looked limp in a logo."