There’s always money in the banana stand: 5 things Arrested Development can teach us about branding.
There are many lessons to be learned from the Bluth family — the benefits of leaving a note to the dangers of swimming with loose seals. But what else can we glean from one of television’s most dysfunctional families?
In more than 70 episodes, Arrested Development has provided us with some thought-provoking commentary on the world of branding and naming. Here are five branding lessons from the beloved Bluth family.
1. The Corn Baller
The Corn Baller is a name so bad it’s good. Invented by George Bluth in the mid-1970s, the Corn Baller is a cornball deep fryer that has left its mark on nearly every member of the Bluth family. It’s also as descriptive a name as they come. So why is the Corn Baller one of the longest running jokes in the series?
See, names don’t simply fall on a spectrum from good to bad. It’s more like a circle. A name can be so bad it actually meets all the requirements for being a theoretically good name: memorable, engaging, and easy to find. A real-life example is a dessert disgustingly called “Dump Cakes.” I don’t ever want to eat one, but I sure as hell will never forget what they’re called.
2. Gobias Industries
After both G.O.B. and Tobias ask him for money, Michael tells them to come up with a business proposition so he can invest. The two create Gobias Industries, a coffee company that gets its title by squeezing together the co-founder’s first names. Around here we call this wordsmash. These are names like Comcast and Valujet, Verizon and Instagram. In his book Don’t Call It That, creative director Eli Altman writes that “a lot of companies have gotten the idea that if you smash two words together, people are somehow going to place you at the mental intersection of these two word’s definitions.” But in reality, there’s no intersection. There’s no cross-section of meaning. Wordsmash just leaves you holding some broken pieces, not sure what to do next.
And although Gobias is an awful name, it led to an one amazing, if not brilliant, slogan: “Gobias some coffee.”
3. The Bluth Company
The Bluths are no stranger to the public eye. Throughout the five seasons, the Bluths frequently appeared on FOX 6 Newport Beach with John Beard and Scandalmakers after their many public, and often drunken, outbursts. But every time Lucille was caught on World’s World Drivers or the Bluth brothers appear in the popular Boyfights videos, the company name was dragged through the mud with them. This is why you never name a company after yourself. You never know when a family dispute at Klimpy’s or the annual Motherboy gala will turn into a public relations nightmare.
4. The Banana Stand vs. the Banana Shack
In the episode “Making a Stand,” we see what happens when branding is used for evil. G.O.B. opens “The Banana Shack” feet away from Bluth’s Original Frozen Banana Stand on Oceanside Wharf. The two stands are nearly identical in name and identity. In an attempt to lure customers away from Michael, G.O.B. hires strippers, performs magic tricks (a.k.a. “illusions”), and adopts a rather aggressive brand slogan: “A frozen banana that won’t make you sick and kill you!” Things turn ugly fast. Your branding should be used to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative. It’s a way to signal your core beliefs, values, and who you are. If done well, you won’t need to result to petty branding and marketing. Your audience will buy your frozen bananas because they like who you are and what you stand for. No strippers necessary.
5. The sh*t Tobias says
In Arrested Development no one had more verbal faux pas than Tobias Fünke. Here are just a few of my favorites: “I guess you could say I’m buy-curious,” “I know you’re the big marriage expert — oh, I’m sorry, I forgot, your wife is dead!” and of course “I just blue myself.” The last one hits home for us at A Hundred Monkeys. Words are our business. We think about them daily, contorting them into new meaning and context. And in the middle of this verbal gymnastics, we sometimes forget a basic rule: say the words out loud. Simple. It doesn’t happen often, but every now and again someone will toss out a name that is perfect in meaning and poetry. It even looks pretty on paper and meets all the specific project and client requirements. But at the end of the day, you can’t name something “Two Week Movers” or “Dye All Ready.” When naming, don’t be like Tobias. You could end up a real blowhard.
