Washington State University will hold a naming contest for its new apple variety, WA 64, and while the winner will get a healthy supply of fruit and other prizes, millions of dollars potentially are at stake.

The apple’s brand name will be used for marketing and licensing for decades — or even longer.

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“The brand can be worth everything,” said Jeremy Tamsen, director of innovation and commercialization for WSU’s College of Agricultural, Human and Natural Resource Sciences.

WA 64 won’t be in supermarkets until 2029, but there’s ample excitement already.

“We want to keep people engaged, we want to keep people’s attention. The naming contest will allow us to do that,” Tamsen said.

“We’ll be opening up a website where people will be able to submit their name ideas,” he added.

Tamsen attributed much of the interest in WA 64 to the success of Cosmic Crisp, released in 2019. It’s become one of the nation’s top-selling apples, with 22 million trees planted in Washington.

So far, WSU has received about $6 million in royalties from Cosmic Crisp, almost all of which has been pumped back into a marketing campaign meant to stimulate demand for the apple, Tamsen said.

Naming contest

Though WA 64 trees are for Washington farmers, the naming contest will be open to everyone, regardless of location.

A committee of industry and university staff will choose the top moniker after focus groups consider alternatives — there’s no chance of a “Boaty McBoatface” joke name emerging from a poll.

“We don’t want to back ourselves into a corner with a bad brand name,” Tamsen said.

Focus group testing will uncover anything offensive to the customer, either in English or another language, or in other regions of the world.

If the name chosen is modified, the winner still will receive credit.

Short and punchy

Great brand names are short and punchy to fit on supermarket stickers and so shoppers remember them, Tamsen said.

The university also hopes for a name pertaining to WSU or the region, or the apple’s qualities.

WA 64 has a pink blush on a yellow background, and is firm but crisp, with balanced sweetness and tartness.

Cosmic Crisp, while relatively long, has been a successful name, Tamsen said. The moniker nods to the variety’s parentage – it’s a hybrid of Honeycrisp and Enterprise – as well as the mouthfeel and white spots on the apple’s skin.

WSU licenses Cosmic Crisp for products such as apple slices, juice and 2 Towns Ciderhouse’s Cosmic Crisp, the top selling imperial cider in the country.

But copycats have stolen the name for everything from corn to marijuana, so WSU is always on the lookout for trademark infringement, Tamsen said.

The trademark for Cosmic Crisp, and for whatever WSU names WA 64, will last as long as the university maintains it.

Years ago, the University of Minnesota provided a painful learning experience in trademark and licensing rights with Honeycrisp, Tamsen said.

The university wasn’t bullish on Honeycrisp because of a 40% cull rate.

For whatever reason, UM used the name on the patent, rather than trademarking it, which only gave Honeycrisp 20 years of protection.

Just as Honeycrisp was starting to become one the nation’s most popular apples, UM’s patent expired, Tamsen said.

Since then, it hasn’t made a penny from Honeycrisp apple or product sales in the United States, he added.

WSU’s third commercial variety was patented as WA 38, but trademarked as Cosmic Crisp.

A similar strategy will be used for WA 64 to provide licensing protection after the patent expires, giving growers a secondary market and helping promote the apple.

“Putting the obvious benefit of ongoing royalties aside, the enduring trademark protection allows WSU to maintain quality control standards for products,” Tamsen said.