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Failures

by Mike Masnick

Wed, Sep 1st 2004 12:39pm





Acclaim Shows Just How Well Marketing Gimmicks Work By Going Out Of Business

from the poor-baby-Turoks dept

Video game maker Acclaim's most recent claims to fame have been much more about ridiculous promotions, rather than games that people actually want to buy. They wanted to advertise on tombstones (some game involving death), pay your speeding tickets (some game involving car racing) and to get people to name their first baby Turok (some game involving characters with weird names). However, like IUMA, the company that asked parents to name their kids IUMA and quickly went out of business, it appears that the baby naming promotion curse has struck again. Acclaim has apparently laid everyone off, shut down their offices, and is declaring Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Hopefully, little baby Turoks and Iumas can now hang out and talk about their parents' bizarre behaviors in naming them after a company that couldn't last until they were at least out of diapers. If you absolutely must name your kid after a brand, you should at least pick one that can last.

5 Comments | Leave a Comment..


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  1.  

    Promotional Curse

    identicon
    Oliver Wendell Jones, Sep 1st, 2004 @ 12:55pm

    Look at the number of dot-bombs that paid huge sums of money to 'buy' the naming rights to professional sports stadiums who later failed.

    Or the number of professional athletes who appear on the cover of video games or sports magazines who then get hurt and ruin their career.

    You gotta wonder...

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  

    Other naming concepts from the past / present

    identicon
    RJD, Sep 1st, 2004 @ 1:49pm

    Not so much in the 'brand' venue but early on, Charles Schultz in the Peanuts comic strip had a kid named 5 whose other siblings were also named after numbers. And we have George Foreman who named all his kids George. Seems parents are always striving to some how brand their children with unique names ... which is some times better than XXX jr or the II or III etc. Maybe some physc major can explain the personality types who insist on naming kids after themselves (hoping the child will accomplish in life what they never could?) or name them so they stand out like a sore thumb (afraid the kid will be nameless/faceless like they were in life?).

    So what would be worse ... being named Turok, Judas, or Benedict ?

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  

    distinctive names

    identicon
    aNonMoose("Edsel")Cowherd, Sep 1st, 2004 @ 9:41pm

    So what's wrong with having a name that is different, means absolutely nothing, and sounds like gibberish?

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  4.  

    Re: distinctive names

    identicon
    thecaptain, Sep 2nd, 2004 @ 5:01am

    Nothing really...but why would you want to name someone after one of Dorpus' posts???

    ;)

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  5.  

    typo!

    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Sep 2nd, 2004 @ 12:44pm

    If you absolutely must name you kid after a brand, you should at least pick one that can last.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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