Of course, I dont want to change my name. I should thank my parents for giving me a rather unique name — How many Asian Indians do you know have a name — Mario! If I'm a brand, my name is a great brand differentiator, but it wasn't the case with my old blog title. I also felt that the old title was boring and blase: "Marketing Communications v3.0". Come on!?

So one fine day I changed it and here are the 3 reasons why.

(i) Practice what you preach:

What started it all was a blog debate between Mark Ramsey and Seth Godin regarding the term podcasting. Seth believed that for a name to stick in reader's minds it should be brave! While I'd concur, I believe the hallmark of a great brand name is that it should be accurate and imaginative. My take was that term podcasting wasn't the best possible term because it wasn't accurate, nor was it imaginative… and then I thought about my blog.

"Marketing Communications v3.0" – What comes to mind: Boring, dull, unimaginative, verbose, etc… I could go on and on. So I decided I had to change but what name do I change it to, was the question.

(ii) Be Classic:

Another reason that precipitated this change of tone, was all the brouhahah over web 2.0 and the O'Reilly fiasco. I wasn't helping my cause, by aligning my blog title with a technology which is still evolving, and in all probability will go away soon. Web 2.0, 3.0 may come and go, but marketing and its foundations will last forever or atleast I hope so…

(iii) Define ME: Accurate AND Imaginative.

What was I talking about through my blog? I realized I was moving away from marcom per se into a broader yet more interesting avenues within marketing like web 2.0 marketing, cluetrain manifesto, word-of-mouth marketing, community marketing, RSS marketing, customer evangelism, podcast marketing, etc… So I decided to stick with just "Marketing" in my name.

Now for the fun part – imagination! I wanted a part of my name to be more descriptive of who I am and where I am from. I think my cultural heritage encompasses a broad range of philosophies like buddhism and "Nirvāna" struck me as the ultimate goal of atleast some of these religions. Plus, the word has been made über-cool by the band. So there it was, my friends — "Marketing Nirvāna".

So, what is my blog – 'Marketing Nirvāna' all about?:

mar·ket·ing | nir·vā·na (märk-tng | nîr-vän, nr-)
n.An ideal condition of rest, harmony, stability, or joy for marketer and consumer alike.

To reiterate, my original objective of starting this blog was to chronicle my journey in trying to find some solutions to the problems that current day marketers face. I also realized that Integrated Marketing Communication, is not as integrated as it's supposed to be. "Marketing Nirvāna", accurately describes the goal of this blog in finding ways and means to define that ideal condition of harmony for consumer and marketer and it also gives a feel for who I am and where I am from. Sounds good to me…

Let me know what you think of the title.