The Mysterious Power of a Brand Name: Seiko

I've been thinking that part of Seiko's appeal is not just the watch but the brand name. Seiko evokes a streamline flying machine, transcendence, a faraway place where Vikings go when they die, Valhalla. 

My friend works for a branding company in San Francisco and the amount of work he does in linguistics, mythology, ancient history, etc., is amazing. 

Seiko is a great name. I don't know what it means, for me personally, but I'm sure it's a chimera of some sort. In the context of radios, Ed mentioned there is indeed a chimera, called the Rosebud, a reference to Citizen Kane. 

Comments

[dave kernan]

This is from Wiki, The company was founded in 1881, when Kintarō Hattori opened a watch and jewelry shop called "K. Hattori" (服部時計店 Hattori Tokeiten?) in the Ginza area of Tokyo, Japan. Eleven years later, in 1892, he began to produce clocks under the name Seikosha (精工舎 Seikōsha?), meaning roughly "House of Exquisite Workmanship". According to Seiko's official company history, titled "A Journey In Time: The Remarkable Story of Seiko" (2003), Seiko is a Japanese word meaning "exquisite," "minute," or "success". (The meaning "exquisite" is usually written 精巧, while the meaning "success" is usually written 成功.)

[Angelo]

I like "Invicta" too. To me, that evokes power, victory, leadership, etc. As I recall, in the early 1970s, there was the "Invictus" record label----they put out a lot of good R&B. I believe Freda Payne's "Band of Gold" was on that label. Invictus, Invicta, both sound good to me!