Hedgehogging: hedge*hog*ging v. Interrupting conversations in an office environment

For all the hype Sprint Nextel put behind last week’s “Technology Summit” in Reston, Va., we were hoping the carrier would have come up with something more exciting than a name for its WiMAX service. We sent our intrepid Online Editor Mike Dano all they way there to cover the news and all he got was a lousy Tshirt that says “Xohm.” (Actually we cannot verify that Dano received a T-shirt from the event, and even if he did, he would not be allowed to accept it if it was deemed valuable.)
——————————-
Sprint Nextel’s branding is running counter to its competitors. When AT&T bought
BellSouth, and thus Cingular, it brought everything under the AT&T brand, so much so that it dropped the Cingular name even though Cingular had a better brand reputation than AT&T Wireless. Verizon Wireless, despite being 45%-owned by Vodafone, is very much a Verizon brand, just like its wireline business and fiber-to-the-home business. Sprint, meanwhile is resurrecting Nextel’s Direct Connect
name, adding Xohm and is home to Boost, Virgin Mobile and a host of other
brands. While there is clear reasoning for MVNO branding, and even Boost subbranding as Sprint Nextel calls it, we’re wary of the need to name the WiMAX
service separately. Isn’t WiMAX one of the reasons to choose Sprint rather than its competitors?
——————————-
Here’s hoping Sprint Nextel kept some of the old Direct Connect sales collateral. Maybe Sprint Nextel can even tout the “green” nature of the name change and start a whole new trend in the wireless industry-recycling names. We can see it now, Motorola ditches its next play on the Razr name for StarTac; and T-Mobile USA loses its German accent and brings back VoiceStream and Jamie Lee Curtis. That would be awesome.
——————————-
Enough with Sprint Nextel, what about that Nokia, huh? Exploding batteries? That’s one way to get attention, though we are not sure why the No. 1 handset vendor would do such a thing. It noted that only around 100 incidents of combustible battery syndrome (that’s what we are calling it and we are waiting word on our trademark application) out of like 46 million batteries in use. That seems like a pretty small percentage, maybe even a fraction of a percent. (That’s all we have on that topic for now as those last few math terms have caused an office-wide migraine.)
——————————-
It’s still amazing how Hollywood is relying on cellphones to move movie plots. In some cases, like the recent “Bourne Ultimatum,” the story line would have stopped after about two minutes if it were not for cellphones. Movies certainly are providing a branding opportunity for cellphone manufacturers, but it’s tough for us to watch scenes where the hero is making a call underwater or from space. Is a little realism too much to ask for? Oh wait, it’s Hollywood. (Sidenote: For those looking for a movie without blatant product placements from the wireless industry, check out Hot Rod. It relies on good, old-fashioned physical comedy for its plot.)