Which of these new bottled water launches do you think will be the most successful in the UK: This Water, from Innocent Drinks, or Chaudfontaine, from Coca-Cola? If I were a betting woman I would opt for the former, despite Coca-Cola's massive marketing muscle and distribution reach. This Water takes the Ronseal approach and "does what it says on the tin". It's an approach that has a lot to recommend it and is entirely consistent with the Innocent brand values of integrity, honesty and health.

By contrast, Chaudfontaine sounds pretentious and translates as the distinctly unpalatable "warm spring". Don't we want our drinking water to be cool and refreshing? And how are we supposed to pronounce it? In a perfect French accent or flat, estuary English? Can you imagine yelling an order for a bottle in a busy pub?

What companies call themselves and their products and services continues to bemuse me. The recent name change by Liverpool Victoria, the UK's largest friendly society, to LV= is just one example of this naming nonsense. The rebrand is, apparently, part of "a fresh vibrant look that supports the restructured company's ambitious business plans."

Those who treat branding as smart-aleck cosmetics, shouldn't be surprised when they are accused of putting lipstick on a pig"

I think using the initials LV is arrogant. It's a bit like me calling myself JS and expecting everyone to know who I am. The Queen might get away with it ("HRH" is almost a term of endearment), as, by dint of their ubiquity, do BA and BT.

But who would know what LV stood for unless it was spelled out to them? And then there's that "equals" sign. "That's close to the heart of what the business is all about," the marketing director is quoted as saying. "We are committed to our mutual status, and the equals sign is just a modern way of saying 'mutual'. For most people it works at this level, but if you want to delve deeper, we are owned by our members, and they all have equal votes, so we are a society of equals."

Just to confuse matters, the friendly society's legal name will remain Liverpool Victoria Friendly Society Limited, and, "for convenience in conversation and on the phone, the company will refer to itself simply as LV."

It would take a code-breaker to find through all that. It's about as far from doing what it says on the tin as it's possible to imagine.

Another name I struggle with is Hi8us. It's a charity, yes, but not for those suffering from hernias. Rather, it's for disadvantaged young people. Unless you know it has a number 8 in the middle, Googling it takes you into the realm of medical encyclopaedias and eye-watering symptoms. But do you really want to have to explain how to spell your name every time you talk to people? Even a PR representative I spoke to had three attempts before she got it right.

A casual flick through an issue of Marketing magazine provides some clues about the origin of this nonsensical nomenclature. If marketing agencies rejoicing in names such as Zulu, Cheetah, Strawberry Frog, Elephants Can't Jump, Naked, Mother, cchm:ping, Nexus/H, L.Bi, i-level and pretty little head are advising clients on what to call themselves, it's perhaps surprising that the current crop of new names isn't even more colourful.

Perhaps the answer is not the name itself, but how you invest the name with meaning-and the launch of Orange in 1994 remains exemplary. In danger of being dismissed as a cheap attempt to copy Apple, Orange ran a brilliant teaser campaign featuring first blank orange posters, then orange posters with the word "Orange" on them, then posters bearing the legend "The future's bright, the future's Orange", before finally revealing that Orange was a new mobile phone brand, by which time consumers were won over.

Importantly, since launch, everything the company has done in creating and delivering its product has consciously aligned behind the values of innovation, optimism and customer focus that the brand proposition implied. Orange is an example of truly integrated branding.Those, on the other hand, who treat branding as smart-aleck cosmetics, shouldn't be surprised when they are accused of putting lipstick on a pig.