Woeful Branding

Recent tragedy aside, “Typhoon” is just a horribly unimaginative name for an (albeit yuppified and second-rate) rice rocket. “The new wave of bold style,” indeed. (Note: I’d like to suggest a correction to Toyota Canada here: “tsunami” is actually the Japanese word for… “tsunami.”)
I’ve written about this in the past, but my favorite branding memory is the Japanese company that developed an early web browser and dubbed it “Woody, the Internet Pecker.” I, of course, assumed this was a product aimed at the “average horndog salaryman” demographic, complete with Auto-cache Delete Function and Boss Coming! Minimize-to-Tray Button for safely browsing tentacle rape fansites at work, and would have opted for something bolder, like, “CYBERDONG, the Virtual Manhood Extension (w/improved Fuzzy Logic),” to interest the English-speaking plastic-model-otaku crowd and perhaps AirSoft “survival game” enthusiasts as well (because pursuing a pasttime characterized by “getting shot with hard plastic BBs that leave bloody welts” pretty much requires mental illness on the part of the players, and who better to appeal to with risque branding?). I can see the massive marketing blitz now:
– – – BUY CYBERDONG! THE DONG IS ONE! THE DONG IS INSIDE. US ALL. – – –