By definition, the brand name exists to identify your business. By definition, the slogan suggests your product’s appeal and advantages, or your company’s mission and purpose.
Now, what happens when owners name their company or product? Usually they look for something too descriptive – a 2 or 3 word name composed of real words. The result is companies like The Health Care Group, Personal Care, Business Support Solutions, Real Estate and Lifestyle Technologies. Why do they do this? We can think of the following reasons: 1. They believe that descriptive names are easier to memorize. 2. They believe that only real word names are easy to spell. 3. They believe that descriptive names are SEO-friendly. The truth is that these reasons are myths in brand naming: 1. Descriptive names are very hard to memorize. Do you remember any brand names that are that descriptive? On the contrary, the first brands that usually pop up to mind are Coca-Cola, Google, Skype and Starbucks. 2. Real word names might be easy to spell but these are usually longer to spell. Repeat after me: Personal Care. Now, say Avon. Which one is better? 3. SEO-friendly? Your name must be customer friendly. Only a good name can attract customers and make them want to come back. Focus on your clients, not on engines. Back to the brand name's definition, you have to remember that the name must identify your very product, company or service, not the market you are in. Otherwise, your slogan name will lack uniqueness in times when being unique is becoming more and more crucial in marketing. At the end of the day, we have a question: does your name sound like a slogan?
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Usually naming companies write about unsuccessful brand names, like the launch of Mitsubishi's Pagero in Spain ("pajero" being a slang term for "wanker" in Spanish), before being rebranded as Montero, or Coca-Cola which sounded like "female horse fastened with wax" in Chinese, before being rebranded as Coke. Now we would like to do the exact opposite: write about the successful brands. We will reveal how they were created and why they inspire us with their origin. Etymology: Chain of supermarkets and hypermarkets which started with a store near a crossroad ("carrefour" in French) in Annecy. Why we like it: Because there is a great story behind the name. Plus, we like the logo with its hidden C letter. Etymology: Named after the founder Louis-Ulysse Chopard. Why we like it: Because it sounds luxurious and expensive. Etymology: Named after the company founder, Walter P. Chrysler. Why we like it: See Chopard. Etymology: Compound name between "group" and "coupon". Why we like it: Because it is so obvious, all the more it is a brand new category. Etymology: Combination of the Danish "leg godt", which means to "play well". Why we like it: Because every kid does, remember? Who knew Lego accually had a meaning. Now we love the name even more. Etymology: Larry Ellison, Ed Oates and Bob Miner were working on a consulting project for the CIA. The code name for the project was Oracle. Why we like it: Because it sounds like a leading company. No surprise it is. Etymology: Alternate spelling of rhebok (Pelea capreolus), an African antelope. Why we like it: Because it is enigmatic and very unique - we like such names. Etymology: The original concept for the name was Sky-Peer-to-Peer, which morphed into Skyper, then Skype. Why we like it: It is short and easy to memorize. Etymology: A carbonated apple juice that has a "snappy apple taste." Why we like it: Because it is catchy and suggestive. Etymology: A contraction of "Second Watch" because the new watch was introduced with a new concept of watches as casual, fun, and relatively disposable accessories. Why we like it: Because it is in line with their revolutionary idea. Moreover it sounds like "Swiss watch". Conclusion: If you have a surname that sounds like Chrysler, you do not need a naming company like the Rabbiter.
Discover more stories behind famous brands here. Inspired by the requirements of our clients, by the rules of our competitors and by what we do for a living, we present our version of the 5 most common myths about brand naming: 1. Names should start with letters early in the alphabet. Well, this is probably a very relevant rule… for the age when computers and respectively search engines were not yet invented. When was the last time you looked for a company or product in an alphabetized show guide? In today’s digital era brands can be found easily through computers, phone, tablets, etc. Now let’s take a look at the top 100 global brands for 2010 - some names that start with the last 3 letters in the alphabet are Xerox, Yahoo, Yves Saint Laurent, Zara and Zurich. These names sound more than right to us… 2. Names should not sound offensive in any language. The truth is that there are too many languages in the world. For example “sure” sounds like “death” in Estonian, but that does not mean that you should not use that word in your name. Today people have a global thinking – it will be harder and harder to scare someone to death with an English word like “sure”. When creating the name, you should just avoid negative connotations in the most common languages, like English, Spanish, French, German and also in the local languages of the markets where you plan to operate. If necessary you can also rebrand your product for some new market. Focus groups could be helpful in this situation. 3. Suggestive names are easier to remember than coined names. As professionals who create and study brand names every day, we prefer a name that is not obvious and that makes you think for a second, thanks to its metaphor, its structure or thanks to some hidden idea. As strange as it might sound, names that are too obvious are actually easy to forget. This is probably because people do not try remembering the name as they are sure that they have already memorized it. For instance Starbucks is harder to read at first, but once memorized, it is hard to forget. While a name like Elite Coffee (a real brand by the way) is very easy to read and understand, but hard to remember. This is because one will say in a few days "Oh I remember that name, it was something like Top Coffee or Premium Coffee... something like that". 4. Names should be SEO-friendly. No, your website should be SEO-friendly, not your domain name. Consumers will keep coming to your website if they remember your brand name. In order to increase the traffic to your web page, your brand name needs to be catchy, unique and different. Do not turn your brand name into a 3 word description of your product or service. Remember, you can always put that description in the Meta Keywords of your website and your advertising materials. 5. Outsourcing the name development to a naming company costs more. When speaking of costs of the naming process, all the resources should be taken into consideration – time, efforts and salaries. Imagine this: the CEO and 3 Brand Managers brainstorm for a week and they come up with names that can not be registered as a trademark, or their domain names are already secured, or nobody can spell them as they should. Does this sound familiar to you? So how much time, efforts and salaries that costs? This is why there is room for naming companies on the market. And some “hunt” better than others. Now you know what we think you should not do. Learn what we think you should with our 7 golden rules. |
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