May 1998 —
Bill Clinton is in the White House, buffeted by the Lewinsky scandal, while the Department of Justice and 20 states file an anti-trust case against Microsoft.
The Dow Jones has blown past the 9,000 mark for the first time. The dotcom bubble has yet to burst, with venture capital flooding to hot new startups like Kozmo and PlanetRX, while Yahoo, AOL, and Netscape duke it out for the portal and browser markets.
The Utah Jazz and Chicago Bulls are the teams to beat in the NBA Playoffs. The Lion King is a roaring success on Broadway, armageddon blockbuster Deep Impact makes a meteoric killing at the box office, and Will Smith’s “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It” is a hit single (remember singles? remember radio?).
And a small, yet-to-be-named (we were NewCo for our first few projects!) naming agency opens its doors with a mission to provide clients superlatively creative, on-brand, exciting, ownable company and product names.
Yes, Catchword is celebrating 19 years in the naming biz!
Many of our early clients were part of the dotcom boom. Venture capital was flowing in the Bay Area, and those projects all needed a name. Petopia, whom we named in 1999, was the quintessential e-commerce startup.
Back then there weren’t many of us around. Naming was almost a cottage industry (and still is, really), with about five cottages. Catchword was the partner you could trust to collaborate with you, to get to know your brand and offer the widest range of name styles and more than enough great candidates to find a kickass name you could own.
We still are that partner. And we are deeply grateful to the more than 700 clients we’ve had the good fortune to work with over these score minus one years. We look forward to the next 19!
Catchword wouldn’t be the award-winning naming firm we are today without our dedicated and talented team, past and present. Thank you all.
Yes, Catchword is celebrating 19 years in the naming biz.
