Trademark and Branding Lessons from Enron

I'm listening to the CD version of Conspiracy of Fools by Kurt Eichenwald, which provides an intimate blow-by-blow of Enron's collapse.  The second CD contained the following passage recounting the story of Enron's original name, Enteron.  I apologize for any mistakes in transcribing the text.

The name had been proposed by Lippincott and Margolis, a pricey New York consulting firm, that had spent three months and millions of dollars on the project.  It derived from an analysis of the company’s business:  “En” for energy; “ter” for international and InterNorth; and “on” because it sounded cool.  After thinking it up, the consultants had checked around the world to be sure that no other company was using the name, and that it did not have some vulgar meaning in another language.  Problem was, no one bothered to check Websters.  Enteron is also a word for the digestive tube running from the mouth to the anus.  Particularly unfortunate given that Lays’ company produced natural gas.  Within days of the announcement, the soon to be Enteron was a laughingstock.  It all came to a head one Saturday, as Lay and his two top advisors, Nick Seidel, his president, and Rich Kinder, his general counsel jogged three miles in Houston’s Memorial Park debating what to do.  Seidel and Kinder believed that the issue would blow over in little time.  Lay was equally adamant that the name had to go.  Two days later, Lay contacted the naming consultants informing them that either they needed to figure out a new name quickly, or that it would stay HNG InterNorth.  Somehow, the work that took three months for the first name was repeated in little more than a week.  Lay liked the new suggestion immediately.  The shareholders overwhelmingly approved it.  HNG InterNorth would from then on be known as Enron.  A name that in its first days was already on its way to being bound up in scandal.

So here's my takeaways from this passage:

• Naming a company can cost millions


• Because you may be spending a lot of money on your name, make sure you clear it from a trademark prospective


• When naming, make sure to check for foreign equivalents for potential vulgar meanings


• Also, check for other potentially embarrassing meanings or connotations

Tags: trademark, trademark search, trademark screening, branding, naming, Enron