Well, why the new name is bad has been greatly discussed on Facebook and reddit (TLDR; jimmy is slang for Penis, making the name easily be associated with semen; plus the name sounds like a joke when told to someone asking about the product)
I love this company, the product, the people who work there and I don’t want it to go downhill! Everyone makes mistakes, but it’s not too late to fix it.
Let’s brainstorm possible new names for the team to consider. Requirements: must not be similar to “soylent” and not have the same faults as “jimmyjoy”
My personal favourite right now is "Joyfull"as suggested by someone on Facebook, which is also a pun
I doubt it will crash and burn due to the new name, but I agree the name is kinda bad - they managed to make it weirder sounding then jimmyjoy-plennyshake, which was such a boring copy of the Soylent name. At least I won’t stop buying it due to the new name, but they should have gotten a proper PR firm to invent a new name, rather than just brainstorm around the office, which is what it sounds like they did with Jimmy Joy
A coworker of mine recently asked me about the stuff I’ve been drinking for lunch, and when I told him “Well, it used to go by a different name, but now it’s called Jimmy Joy,” he nearly died laughing and now refers to it as “Jimmy’s load.” I wouldn’t mind it as much if the rest of the office didn’t catch on and start referring to it by the same name.
And they’re not even doing it to be rude, they just CANNOT take the name seriously.
The sheer flippancy of the new name and the social repercussions, whether perceived or experienced, is going to turn people away from it, or they’ll just lie and say it’s Soylent (Great marketing for Jimmy Joy!)
Someone needs to start producing and selling “jimmyjoy-plennyshake” stickers that can be stuck over the “Jimmy Joy” logo/name on the packaging to avoid the embarrassment.
Not a problem for me as I use individual ziplock bags for each serving I have out of the house, such as at work. At work I also have a black blender bottle that you can’t see through so no one knows what I’m drinking anyway.
I really love “JoyFuel” as well. LiFood is also pretty good, but reminds of a “lie”, not sure if that’s great. someone also recommended “Joyleh” which i think sound pretty good when spoken.
Don’t forget that “-lent” names won’t work due to the legal problem with soylent!
also pretty funny you bring up “happy meal” - that’s food and joy combined in a good way… too bad it’s taken by McDonald’s
Man, I sure hope the JimmyJoy Team will actually take all these comments as constructive criticism and reconsider their name… This is really no matter to be stubborn about, it could potentially save the company…
Yesterday I received my bi-monthly batch of TwennyBars (the last one with jimmyjoy-plennyshake logo printed?).
It included the vanilla TwennyBars for the first time and I noticed they come with no jimmyjoy-plennyshake mention AT ALL in the package. So at least Twennybars will remain as a sub-brand, no JimmyJoy to be seen, They even have they’re own domain name too).
Hi y’all! Thanks for the suggestions, but… We actually love our new name. Of course we didn’t feel like changing in the first place, but we had to and are happy with the result. When picking a new name you’ll have to take into account a lot more than you’d first think of. A lot of the names you came up with actually crossed our minds as well. There are so many names taken already though and a lot of the options sounded too similar to our previous name or other companies in the same branch. We ended up with Jimmy Joy and are sure you’ll love it eventually. It’ll need some getting used to- for you, but also for us. We loved our old name, but it’s time for something new now! We bet it’ll grow on you guys <3
I sense that “Jimmy Joy” was coined by someone who hadn’t spent a lot of time in the US. Yet I am guessing that much or most of the company’s business could be expected to be sales to US-based customers. Because it is a bad name for the US, I applaud this thread.
I don’t know what alternative name would be best. I would leave that to market researchers to decide.
@grant_barnes@feepingcreature did you see the contest we did to give our powder/shakes a product name? It’s done now, but this means your shakes won’t be named Jimmy Joy. It’s just the brand’s name! We’re not going to tell you what it’ll be just yet, but we’re sure you’ll like it.
