Full disclosure, I stole this idea from my virtual friend Stella over at bksp.org, and she also wondered if there is going to be a sister product for swimming, the iTampon.
Spend millions on focus groups and some clever woman is going to poke a hole in your brand, and then it will spread over the internet as I am helping to do.
And then I told my wife about this great idea I had for a humor piece, and she said it's already all over the internet. So even today, it's possible to live under a rock.
An even bigger company than Apple, Standard Oil of New Jersey, thought it had learned its lesson from General Motors who infelitously called its 1962 car, Nova, which, if you were paying attention in Spanish 101, reads "doesn't go." (I know its an urban legend that this actually hurt sales.)
Standard's major rivals at the time, Shell and Texaco, were happily Shell and Texaco in all 50 states.
Standard wanted a national brand. It was having problems with ESSO, which was banned from use in many states after the antitrust breakup of the original Standard Oil in 1912. First it thought of letting its other brand, Enco, go national, until it learned "enco" is a homophone in Japanese for stalled car. So, next up was Exon, until they realized it was the name of the governor of Nebraska. Not a good idea at the time and I wonder if they thought of a possible violation of federal law on corporate contributions to politicians.
No problem today, now that the Supremes opened "the floodgates," as the president rhetorically put it last night. I fully expect to see our Senators and Congressmen 
decked out in NASCAR-style jumpsuits with product decals--Texaco for Kay Bailey Hutchison, Microsoft for Patty Murray, and Aetna for my own Senator Lieberman-with their pit crew aides similarly attired.
In the end, they went with Exxon, which--even though it still sounded like the governor--was inoffensive in any language. Or so they thought. I heard another urban legend that "exxon" is Basque for jackass. Maybe they knew this and didn't care, because there are only 2.2 million Basques and only 1.1 million Basque speakers today--even fewer in 1962--out of a world population of billions. At the time, the Basques might have been too busy to buy cars, spending their spare time planting bombs to separate from the Franco regime.
And if the exxon jackass thing is an urban legend, does it matter? Only the New Yorker hires fact checkers these days.
In the end, the brand remains Steve Jobs, and that brand sells well, and all the jokes about feminine hygiene are extra PR, as long as they can spell iPad.
More disclosure, one of my few wise investment choices was to buy stock in the sale of shiny objects to the cult of Apple. Even I broke down and bought an iPhone, but it was only for a short time I had the pleasure of thinking I had the king of cell phones and everyone else was a peasant. It's good to be king, but now I'm only one of 40 million monarchs, which does nothing for my image, but is good for part of my bottom line.
So may Steve Jobs long and prosper--he's rumored to be a Trekker. I'll defend him against all accusations of having jumped the transplant queue. I wouldn't even begrudge him if he has a backup supply of livers in his freezer, ready to go.
Anyone can have a special interest.
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Click here to read the first chapter of my book, Nasty, Brutish, and Long: Adventures in Old Age and the World of Eldercare (Avery/Penguin, 2009). It provides a unique, insider's perspective on aging in America. It is an account of my work as a psychologist in nursing homes, the story of caregiving to my frail, elderly parents--all to the accompaniment of ruminations on my own mortality. Thomas Lynch, author of The Undertaking calls it "A book for policy makers, caregivers, the halt and lame, the upright and unemcumbered: anyone who ever intends to get old."
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