Branding Disaster

"9/11" is synonymous with the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. "Watergate" isn't a hotel in DC as much as the moniker for a host of illegal activities committed by Nixon's administration. Many smaller scandals have appended the suffix "gate" successfully. Other disasters, however, are still waiting for their names. "Gulf War II" never caught on like I thought it would. And now we have the current financial crisis, which Time's Justin Fox  wants to name. The guidelines: "The name that sticks is going to have to be straightforward, descriptive, and possibly even a little bit dowdy." Here's what I wrote on his blog, The Curious Capitalist:

Haven't seen "Credit Crunch" mentioned in the comments, though it pops up in headlines frequently. "Credit," I think, is a key word that binds several facets of the problem -- too much of it given unwisely, too little of it available now, not enough faith in borrowers' ability to use it intelligently. "jlb39" mentioned "The Credit Collapse," which reminds me that alliteration may help here. Also, as no one seems to have lit upon a good descriptor for this decade itself (the "aughts" never caught on), dating the event will be a bit harder. I suppose whoever ends up holding America's bank notes at the end may have the last word. Anyone know how to say "Credit Crunch" in Mandarin?

Most entries have tongues planted firmly in cheek, but a few are serious attempts at what I see as a type of branding exercise -- framing the debate around a point of view. I'll be interested to see where this leads.