What's In A Name ?
Building a new product requires giving it a name. It's a part of the creative process that people often don't think about.
I used to help my Dad in the product-naming effort. On one set he had developed he said, "What about the name 'Fire Irons'?" I said, "It sounds good." It's a powerful sounding name and has the obvious allusion to "irons-in-the-fire". It was passed onto the failed names pile when my mother correctly pointed out (in the days when woods were really made of wood) that you would have to call the woods "Fire Woods". Another failed name on the pile was the wedge name "Up-Tight". It was a name from the 70's that we had to tell my Dad was not a good idea.
On the successful end of the spectrum, he developed the name "Golf Lynx" as a take-off on the term Golf Links. He put the word Lynx by itself on the club. The word play proceeded to get completely lost. I don't think you'll find anyone today who relates Lynx to any thought but a cat. Well, at least the club was a big success.
That story is what came to mind when I was developing a name for the new putter we have designed. "Leading Roll" has the word play against "Leading Role". That's the role everybody wants to play - and what better thought than to roll the ball well and be the leader. The putter is now in production. I still don't know how many people are actually going to get the word play in the name. But I think I'm already ahead of my dad and "Golf Lynx". I have seen several invoices with the putter name misspelled as "Leading Role". I guess you measure product naming success in strange ways.
On to the next club and the next name.
Full Circle
In early 70's I was helping my father with the development of the first metalwood. He had created a hollow steel shelled driver and was out to prove his fellow professionals that the club was a solid performer.
The club made a loud metallic noise when it hit the ball. - Remember; this was in the days when everything was wood and persimmon was king-.
The reaction among the pros was nearly unanimous: "You'll never sell a club that sounds like that." My fathers' insistence that good ball flight speaks for itself fell on selectively deaf ears.
We set to work to produce the needed sound. We put cork, rubber bicycle tire inner tube, and just about anything else that might work inside the head. The thing that worked the best (and is still used by some) was polyurethane foam. We finally got the club to be acceptably quiet.
He patented that first metalwood and that type of club has since taken over the golf business.
What brings this story to mind is a promotion I saw recently for a new metalwood. They claimed their new club had the solid metalwood noise that every pro is looking for when he hits his driver. -The club sounded very much like the original: minus all the sound deadening trouble we had gone to-.
I think the lesson here is: The current rage in sound and feel is subject to the fluctuations of fashion, but a club idea that really does hit the golf ball better is likely to be around for a very long time.
