Hedi Slimane, newly installed creative director of the Yves Saint Laurent fashion empire, is reportedly spurring the iconic brand name and signature logo created in 1961 at the inception of the house to Saint Laurent Paris. “For Slimane to make the decision to change YSL to SLP before his first collection for the label has been shown is a strong statement about regime change. Clearly, Slimane intends to do things his way," commented the Guardian.

“WWD assures us that the classic YSL logo 'will not disappear,'" reports Racked. In fact, Slimane's rebranding looks to the past as well as the future: He's hoping to tap into the sense of youth and modernity that Yves himself captured with his Saint Laurent Rive Gauche ready-to-wear line in 1966.”

Update: Yves Saint Laurent provided the following statement to brandchannel clarifying the evolution of its branding:

The YSL logo, created by Cassandre in 1961, will remain intact and the name Yves Saint Laurent will continue to be used and represent the fashion house. The Ready-To-Wear line, originally called "Saint Laurent Rive Gauche" in 1966, will now be called "Saint Laurent Paris." Therefore the principal change will be the RTW’s name, "Saint Laurent Paris" and the fashion house will continue to go by the name Yves Saint Laurent. Continue reading...

CNET’s Paul Sloan calls it "the greatest landgrab in Internet history.” The new gTLD application window that opened on January 12, 2012 and closed on May 30th is finally revealed with all of the gTLD strings applied for during this round announced today at a press conference in London. From .AAA (filed by the American Automobile Association to .zippo, there were 1,930 top-level domain applications in all, with a few surprises including what wasn't on the list.

“One of the biggest 'reveals' of the day has been the absence of some very significant players: we did NOT see .FACEBOOK, .COKE, .COCACOLA or .PEPSI, .DISNEY, .IKEA, .EBAY, .NINTENDO or .NESTLE or .NESCAFE,” stated FairWinds Partners, which submitted applications on behalf of clients such as Allstate (.allstate), Symantec (.antivirus) and SC Johnson (.afamilycompany). “The heaviest-hitting industries are Auto, Finance and Pharmaceuticals. We've also seen many brands apply for generic terms. Google is a big one, of course, with 101 applications in total, as is Amazon.”

What we did see, as the Washington Post notes: "Amazon.com wants '.joy,' Google wants '.love' and L'Oreal wants '.beauty.'" The most coveted domain? .APP.Continue reading...

In the annals of brand taglines, "Nobody Doesn't Like Sara Lee" is considered a timeless classic. It evoked images of delectable baked wholesome goodies, fresh from the oven. As a result, the Sara Lee name was indelibly etched into the minds of a generation of moms. (Actually, the full tagline was "Everybody doesn't like something, but nobody doesn't like Sara Lee.")

But that was yesterday. Today's Sara Lee is moving in an entirely new direction — with a product line that concentrates on packaged meats rather than baked goods. So goodbye "Sara Lee" and hello Hillshire Brands, the official new name of the food company's North American foods business as a result of its corporate split. According to a press release, "The new name of the company ... will become effective after the June 28, 2012 spin-off to shareholders of its international coffee and tea business."

It's a natural evolution, given the fact that Sara Lee had already divested itself of the snack cakes and cookies that were its claim to fame. Still, when a brand name with the equity of Sara Lee is abandoned, well...Continue reading...

The New Zealand Rugby Union has international success marketing its national team under the All Blacks name. It sounds tough. It strikes an image. So why not spread the wealth?

The Union has decided to use the All Blacks name for two of its other national teams, which will now be known as the All Blacks Sevens and the Maori All Blacks, according to Yahoo! Sports. The teams will also incorporate the All Blacks name into their logos.

The sevens team plays more games internationally than the national team so it has more opportunities to spread the All Blacks name on a global front.Continue reading...

The mad dash for ICANN-approved generic top-level domain names (also known as gTLDs) is on.

The most popular generic suffixes, .art, .radio, .music, .shop, .food, .bank, and .web are being most aggressively pursued. Google is spending an estimated $10 million to apply for 50 domain name suffixes including .Google, .YouTube, .Docs and .LOL. (Is Google looking to buy a sense of humor?) It's actually one of the biggest brands to jump in, while more than 40 major companies, including Coca-Cola and GE continue to oppose the top-level domain program.

Go Daddy has applied for only two top level domains, .home and .casa. CEO Warren Adelman said the names “were chosen in part because they have multiple meanings with big market opportunities: they can be used in both a real estate context and personal context.” (Of course, the relationship between "Daddy" and "home" in English and Spanish is another lure.) “Dot.com has been getting the lion’s share of branding since the dawn of the internet,” added Adelman. “Any kind of new branding is heavy lifting.”

According to a blog post by Vint Cerf, Google's chief internet evangelist,

We’re just beginning to explore this potential source of innovation on the web, and we are curious to see how these proposed new TLDs will fare in the existing TLD environment. By opening up more choices for Internet domain names, we hope people will find options for more diverse—and perhaps shorter—signposts in cyberspace.Continue reading...

Slogan Slingers bills itself as the world’s first crowdsourcing platform. Pitting professional writers against each other and bringing Fortune 500 level slogans to small business at affordable prices, the platform lets business owners or marketing directors initiate an onsite slogan contest and freelancers compete for a cash award put up by the contest holder in advance.  

“The Slogan Slingers talent pool is impressive,” says founder Rich Davis. “Many of the writers who signed up during our beta testing phase are either moonlighting ad agency writers, successful freelance writers or former ad agency writers put out of work by the recession.” OK — so what did they come up with?Continue reading...

What's in a name? A lot, if you've got an inconvenient one and you want to change it. Would John Denver ever have become beloved, or even reviled, as Henry John Deuschendorf?

Thus you can understand the disappointment of the makers of high-fructose corn syrup this week after the U.S. Food & Drug Administration rejected a request by the corn-refining giants to allow them to change the name of their product to "corn sugar."

The agency said that it defines sugar as a solid, dried and crystallized food — not a syrup. Plus there's already something that technically is a solid corn-based sweetener, dextrose. Thus, the corn refiners are stuck with the moniker — better known by the acronym HFCS — that might as well appear as a skull and crossbones on nutritional labels, the way many American mothers see it.Continue reading...

The latest target dates were announced last night by ICANN for the next phase of the New gTLD (generic top-level domain) Program, which opens up URLs to so-called dot-branding such as .nike or .pepsi at the end of web addresses. The Batching period will open on June 8, close on June 28, and Reveal Day occurs on June 13.

Applicants remain confused about the mechanics of ICANN’s Batching process, the Target Time Variance procedure (also known as “Digital Archery”), available options and the implications the batch they land in could have for their applications.

Two blog posts from FairWinds (see Part 1 and Part 2) break down the Digital Archery process, and offer predictions about what various applicants will do to try to “game” the Digital Archery process and how those actions will ultimately affect brand owners that applied for new gTLDs.

Applicants that land in late batches will have their gTLDs delegated much later – some perhaps not until 2018; applicants who plan to build a business selling domains in their gTLDs will be aiming for the first batches; many brand owners who applied for gTLDs will probably take their cues for participation in the Digital Archery process from Reveal Day.Continue reading...