Conference 7.286::digital

As has been referred to repeatedly in this and many other conferences, adding DEC to
the front of a product name makes it possible to copyright the name as a trademark. 
Just as from Sun you buy a SPARKstation and not a Sun Workstation.

Even Ken himself preferred the company to be called Digital.

    ref .1
    
           SPARCserver
    	   SPARCbook 

    There are lots of examples of companies that have a "real" name and use
    initials for their products.  HP comes to mind.  (Gee, I wonder if they
    area allowed to refer to themselves as HP or have to use
    Hewlett-Packard?)  TI does the same thing.  Both of these companies,
    for example, had/have calculators that used the initials as part of the
    product name.  Then, there are the chip makers like AMD, NEC, NS and so
    forth.
    
    Steve

I'm surprized no one mentioned McDonald's and the McTrademark that appears
on all of their McPackages.

Re: .5

Does your personal name apply at McDonalds?

Lee

    	And I can easily envision a future customer trying to order:
    		DigitalEquipmentCorporationWrite for OpenVMS AXP
    
    but then again, I guess I can't...

    Higher level corporate managers in some companies (IBM, HP, TI, GE,
    many etcs) have more important and productive things to do than worry
    about than things such as "Are we Digital or DEC?".
    
    Of course, I could have MY priorities wrong.  Even a Pope or two got
    into the discussions about the number of Angels that could dnace on the
    head of a pin.
    
    Jut an observation....
    
     

    See note 2538.18 - DECfinancial is a business unit of GE Capital's
    Vendor Financial Services, not a Digital unit.

    .8, .10:
    
    I believe that it was actually how many angels could dance on the POINT
    of a pin (being about as small an object as one could easily obtain).
    
    And the answer should be obvious.
    
    Dick

    The importance of managing our name is critical to rebuilding our
    presence in the marketplace - when 25% of customers who know both the
    names DIGITAL and DEC think that they are DIFFERENT companies - you
    have a major problem in identity and top of mind recall.  This
    translates into waste of advertising and other resources designed to
    build demand for DIGITAL's products, services and solutions.    
    
    A thorough discussion of this issue is in the marketing notes file.
    
      

    re: .12
    
    What you say is very true.
    
    Unfortunately, the customers MAY BE RIGHT.  It depends on which
    "Digital" they know.  Note that Digital Research, for one, is sometimes
    called "Digital" by articles in PC mags.  That's as much their right as
    it is ours, it would seem (I'm not a lawyer, nor do I play one in a
    NOTES conference).
    
    The problem is we've chosen the worst possible word for our brand name:
    Digital.  It's used everywhere, so it can NEVER be ours alone.  We'd
    have been better off with "AXP brand" than "Digital brand".
    
    Megabucks thrown into an advertising campaign will help customer
    awareness, but it won't succeed in making us the ONLY "Digital" on the
    block.
    
    -- Russ

3M had this divergence of perceptions a few years back with "Scotch" 
brand vs. "3M." My impression is that over the last ten years they 
have improved both name brand recognition and overall company health.

Does anyone know what they did (or maybe my perceptions are off).

	erik

Didn't work for me, obviously.  The only immediate referent 
for "scotch" in my mind is the pleasant liquid refreshment.

Ah, but using the "Digital" branding philosophy, 3M should call themsevles

	Minnesota

BobW

But they didn't change Scotchtape to MMMtape or Minnetape
or whatever. I think they just highlighted the "3M" more
in the product packaging and ads than before.

erik

    .17 (on 3M):
    
    Not "Mining"?
    
    Dick

	re .14:

>    My point exactly. The thing is, I find it hard to understand the
>    thinking process that went into choosing "Digital" in the first place.

	"Thinking"???

	/Tom

    The thinking had to do with the fact that the single biggest investor,
    without whose cash we would all be working for some other company, made
    it clear to Ken et al. that a company name with "computer" in it would
    not be acceptable.  There was in 1957 a perception that computers,
    especially low-priced ones, were not something every Tom, Dick, and
    Harry's company needed or wanted.  And they started out making plug-in
    automatic control modules, not complete computers, so the name Digital
    Equipment Corporation was chosen to make a presence in the digital
    electronics industry.  Digital Research and digital watches were still
    far in the future; we *were* the only "Digital" around then.

    >automatic control modules, not complete computers, so the name Digital
    >Equipment Corporation was chosen to make a presence in the digital
    >electronics industry.  Digital Research and digital watches were still
    >far in the future; we *were* the only "Digital" around then.
    
    Not true. Even high school students were making 'digital computer'
    science fair projects in 1957. And there were several other companies
    making digital modules. 
    
    digital wasnt unique then either.

Hi,

Last night on New Zealand TV Digital got a really good "free" plug. 
There is a program (Australian made I think) called "Beyond 2000". Its really
very good every week and covers interesting bits about science, inventions etc.

Digital got a good plug during a piece about the Hong Kong Racing Club system.

Nice picture's of the logo (in the old colour) while they talked about the 35 odd
computers that control the system.

The name "Digital" stood out and must have stuck in peoples minds. 
This is great for Digital, its free and probably the best advert of all. 

    
    
    I cannot help but wonder if anyone but a Digital employee would notice.
    
    
    I saw an IBM commercial last night on the tube that was real good. 
    Customer testimonials.  I sat there and thought, "why in the heck
    aren't we doing this type of thing".
    
    
    
    Mike

We are - but so far i've only seen print ads.  This months Fortune magazine
had a testimonial type ad with 3 or 4 different customers.

I have to agree though, the IBM add was pretty good - i'd like to think that
we'll be doing comparable ads as the next step in our branding campaign.

--Scott

    If we are serious about being in the silicon business we could learn a
    lot from Intel.  Their latest "Intel Inside" T.V. commercials
    trumpeting the 486 and Pentium processors are great.  Like others, as I
    watched it I kept saying "This should be a Digital ad pushing ALPHA." 
    The next thought I have is to wonder why our last T.V. ads had a guy in
    a sauna talking to a terminal?  
    
    Are you kidding me?  What's our next move?  Hiring the firm that does
    the Benneton ads?
    
    Marv
    

    
    RE: .25  I have seen our print testimonial ads, they have been out for
    some time.  I don't know about you but I usually don't sit and read
    testimonial ads in magazines, especially if they are long as ours tend
    to be.  While reading a periodical, I usually focus my efforts on
    reading the articles as opposed to the ads.  
    
    
    
    Mike

    The H-P logo contains both "hp" and full name Hewlett Packard ( sp/).

    Why can't DEC invent a logo doing the same ?

    		D  E  C
    		digital 
    		D  E  C


    		or	digital 
    			D  E  C
    			digital 
    	

    		or		D  E  C
    				digital 


    		or			digital 
    					D  E  C
    	

    Why should we spend the money?  What would it get us?
    
    Besides, Digital is trying to get people to refer to it as Digital and
    not DEC.
    
    M