Fig Newton
Didn’t know it was a trademark, did you? But only the cookies made by Nabisco are, legally speaking, Fig Newtons. Everything else is just “fig bars.”
One popular theory says that Fig Newtons were named after Isaac Newton, but much as we’d all like to see a line of famous scientist cookies (maybe Copernicus Nut Clusters or Heisenberg Uncertainty Macaroons), no such luck. It turns out that the first Fig Newtons were baked by the Kennedy Biscuit Company of Massachusetts, back in 1891. The folks at Kennedy Biscuit, later merged into what would become Nabisco, evidently had a habit of naming their confections after local towns (Beacon Hill, Shrewsbury, etc.) and institutions (e.g., Harvard). The Fig Newton thus immortalizes the lovely Boston suburb of Newton, Massachusetts.
Pringles
Well, one thing’s for certain: it was a lot cheaper than hiring some fancy naming consultant, and it seems to have worked.
Casting around for a name for their new “potato snack product” in the late 1960s, the marketing folks at Proctor & Gamble had a thought. Instead of trying to dream up a completely new name, why not take a close look at the names that already exist? So they pulled out the phone book for their hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio, and started browsing.
Some time later (exactly how much later is not recorded, but Cincinnati is a pretty big town), they hit the jackpot. Tucked away in the suburb of Finneytown, they found a street named “Pringle Avenue.” Pringle… Potato. That’s it! Pringles Potato Snack Product! No, wait, let’s call them “Crisps.” And so perfectly round Pringles Potato Crisps hit America’s streets in 1968, neatly stacked in a distinctive cylindrical metal can.
Pringles are still going strong today, available in a wide range of flavors, including original Pringles, BBQ, Sour Cream -N- Onion, Pizzalicious and Salt & Vinegar. There’s even a Pringles-inspired tortilla chip called Torengos, which are perfectly triangular and come in, what else, a triangular cylindrical can.
Godiva
When in doubt, sex it up. Chocolate in various forms had been a fixture of the European diet since it was first imported by Spain from Mexico in the 16th century. Consumed at first in liquid form, by the late 17th century chocolate was a popular flavoring for cakes and pastry, and soon Switzerland and Belgium had become the world centers of chocolate candy-making.
So when Joseph Draps founded his chocolate company in Brussels in 1926, he was not exactly breaking new ground. True, Draps had perfected a method of making his rich “boutique” chocolates smoother than the competition’s, and he also understood the importance of fancy packaging to a luxury brand’s success. But it fell to Draps’ son, who took over the business a few years later, to come up with the key to building a worldwide chocolate empire, and to do it he drew on one of Europe’s most enduring folk tales.
According to legend, Lord Leofric of Coventry in England in the 11th century was never so happy as when he was levying a new and onerous tax on his subjects. Leofric’s raids on the pocketbooks of the populace drew loud protest, but he remained unmoved. Finally even his wife, Lady Godiva, felt compelled to intercede on the people’s behalf, and to change his mind she offered Leofric an intriguing deal. She would ride naked through the streets of Coventry if Leofric would cut taxes. Convinced she was bluffing, Leofric agreed. But true to her word, Lady Godiva then disrobed, hopped on her horse, and got trotting through town. Leofric, impressed by her chutzpah, then kept his side of the deal and slashed taxes.
What Lord Leofric apparently didn’t know, however, was that Lady Godiva had announced her ride in advance and requested that the villagers stay inside with their shutters closed for the duration of her promenade. Given a choice between seeing the Lord’s wife naked and lower taxes, they naturally chose the tax cut and thus Lady Godiva’s dignity remained unsullied. (According to one version of the legend, the town butcher, a certain Tom, couldn’t resist sneaking a peek, and ever since that day voyeurs have been known as “Peeping Toms.”)
While chocolate is noticeably absent from the story of Lady Godiva’s ride, Draps recognized that the legend was known throughout Europe and North America, and the fact that the name “Godiva” conjured up both wealth and nudity was unlikely to hurt sales, to put it mildly. So Joseph Draps, Jr. launched Godiva Chocolatiers and began marketing luxury handmade chocolates across Europe and, eventually, in the United States. Today the distinctive Godiva gold ballotin, or treasure chest, is among the most widely recognized symbols of luxury in the world.