Brand

COLLEGE PARK -- What is a Terp? According to the University of Maryland administration, it's more than just a turtle or a Maryland athlete -- it's a brand name. In another attempt to burnish the school's reputation, university administrators are pressuring a popular student Web site, TerpIdiots.com, to drop its name, saying its use is a trademark infringement. At a meeting yesterday, administrators persuaded the Web site's student owners to adopt a new domain name and thereby avoid being sued by the university, which owns a trademark on the word "terps."

General Motors Co.'s deal to sell Saturn to the Penske Automotive Group has fallen through, forcing the automaker to shutter the brand altogether. The sale had been expected to be completed as soon as this week. "Penske Automotive Group ... has decided to terminate discussions with General Motors to acquire Saturn," GM Chief Executive Fritz Henderson said in a statement. As a result, "we will be winding down the Saturn brand and dealership network." The news is a blow to GM, which had made selling three of its brands, along with shutting Pontiac, a key component of its post-bankruptcy restructuring efforts.

If David Stern and Myles Brand had wanted a clearer illustration of what's wrong with the culture of youth sports in this country, they couldn't have asked for better examples than Billy Gillispie and Michael Avery. NCAA president Brand and NBA commissioner Stern have bemoaned the state of youth athletics - or, shall we say, basketball - in recent years. Well, here come Kentucky basketball coach Gillispie and Avery, a 14-year-old California boy whom Gillispie offered a scholarship to before Avery even set foot on a high school campus.

Joe Stein got a big surprise last fall when his 11-year-old son Noah asked him for help with homework. On the page of Noah's sixth-grade math textbook was "what looked like an ad for a chain electronics store," said Stein.Going through the rest of the book, Stein discovered references to a wide array of brand-name consumer products, from Nike and Gatorade to Disneyland and Topps baseball cards, many of which appeared in illustrations as well. And that made him angry."He has to use this textbook, and he has to do the work that is intertwined with these advertisements," said Stein, whose son attends middle school in Albany, Calif.

The Power Plant, an entertainment and office complex in Baltimore's Inner Harbor, has become a signature project for its developer, the Cordish Co. Now, the company wants to copy the name and success onto other retail-entertainment centers. The Baltimore-based company is to break ground today on another Power Plant in Hampton, Va. The company planned to announce tenants including a Lowe's home improvement store, Brothers BrewPub and a Jocks & Jams, a sports paraphernalia retailer. Other Power Plants are planned in Richmond, Va., and Jersey City, N.J. The Cordish Co. has had success in developing other urban entertainment centers, including Bayou Place in Houston and Charleston Place in Charleston, S.C. But the new Power Plant project marks the first time Cordish has sought to establish a brand name from one of its developments.

MILWAUKEE -- As baby boomers become more interested in hip and knee replacements than motorcycles, Harley-Davidson Inc. might feel their pain. Even as it comes off the most profitable year in its history, the Milwaukee maker of the world's most famous motorcycles has challenges on several fronts: The graying of its prime audience. The median age for a Harley buyer is 47, compared with 38 for other motorcycle companies. Increased manufacturing costs. Harley is gearing up for labor contract talks in Milwaukee and Kansas City, Mo., after weathering a short but costly strike at its largest assembly plant in York, Pa. Some union members say the spirit of cooperation that once existed between labor and management is broken.

PHILADELPHIA -- One of the most welcome trends in recent years for travelers on the nation's toll roads is beginning to show up in major airports: the replacement of restaurants and snack bars serving bland, often expensive, generic food with nationally known fast-food outlets.The leader of the movement is Host International, a division of Marriott Corp. that operates 102 travel plazas on 16 toll roads nationwide and 750 food, beverage and merchandise shops in 52 U.S. and foreign airports.

As it seeks a new "brand" to sum up its peculiar charms, maybe Baltimore need look no farther than its own backyard for inspiration. Eleven years ago, the Baltimore Opera faced a seemingly impossible task: make that most rarefied of arts, one that appealed largely to a small, aging population, sexy to younger, hipper audiences. Its solution was a slogan: "Opera: It's better than you think. It has to be." Funny, self-deprecating, intriguing - a winning phrase. So as the city itself seeks an image makeover, courtesy of a $500,000 branding campaign, maybe it should heed the advice of the man behind that slogan.

Under Armour yesterday defended a costly marketing campaign for a new cross-trainer sneaker as an essential step in its long-term strategy to build its brand and become a giant player in the sports apparel industry. "We're not looking to take the express lane of easy revenue growth that is unsustainable," Kevin A. Plank, Under Armour chairman and chief executive officer, told analysts in a conference call on year-end earnings. "We are building an infrastructure to support a multibillion-dollar company set on a broad foundation," Plank said.

MP3Car.com used to be the right name for the Baltimore company. Not anymore. The company traces its roots to a worldwide online community of geeks in the 1990s who installed personal computers filled with electronic music files, or MP3s, in their cars. But, like many startup companies that surprisingly grew their business in a different direction, MP3Car.com is now struggling to choose a new name that signals what it does well: build sophisticated mobile computers for corporate and government clients.