a brand name

[mosdef]

Hi guys,

Im close to launching a products and cant decide about the brand name(company name)

Ive chosen the products name, design 95% finished. Booked my first market where i will show the product.

Im stuck at the brand name, i have taken a few weeks but stuck and whenever i find something that is good its .com domain is taken?

Any inputs here? Im starting the company with a friend and thinking of just putting together our middlenames as brand name?

Some say its important to describe what the company does, some say its not important. And we are only launching a product at the moment but looking to add more products to our line soon thus the describing what the company does is little hard.

 

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[deste]

Please don't put together your middlename :/ Imho it's not professional.
What is your niche?

 

[mosdef]

Please don't put together your middlename :/ Imho it's not professional.
What is your niche?

at the moment mens product, but will soon launch hopefully launch products not only for men

 

[deste]

My First insane idea: Manself (from myself ecc)

 

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[mosdef]

tried so many of these but all is taken .com also i will start try to create a product that is not only for men

 

[mosdef]

dont know it help but a logo is a wizard in silhoutte on the logo, maybe the name should be something to do with it?

 

[mosdef]

Also looked up other company's doing same thing. No one has names explaining what they are doing

 

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[wade1mil]

Please don't put together your middlename :/ Imho it's not professional.

Hewlett-Packard (HP)
A&W
Abercrombie & Fitch
Barnes & Noble
Dolce & Gabbana
Johnson & Johnson
Procter & Gamble
Smith & Wesson

Sounds professional to me. Other companies with names that don't mean anything:

Google
Yahoo!
Nike
Amazon
Pepsi (better than Coke)

Bottom line. Pick something and roll with it. Your brand name won't sell your product until you do. Change it later if you want to.

 

[deste]

You are right man but in my opinion in the beginning of a business middlenames sound strange
Anyway if you do you a great work to can call it in whatever you prefer

 

[pickeringmt]

The brand name needs to be (ideally):
simple
two words or less
no irregular spelling
memorable
no symbols, no punctuation

Your brand needs to be cohesive - that is the most important piece. It can be pretty much anything, as long as you make the entire thing into a strong single identity you can build around.

It is important that your brand matches the identity more than the product. For example, if you are making high-end pet food for a wealthy group of pet owners, it is more important that your brand speaks to the group than the product.

This is similar to the idea that you stress the benefits of a product over the features.

You want to convey the heart, essence, and message of your brand in the branding.

Look at some brands that speak to you in this sense, and just keep them in your mind. A private pinterest board can be great for this. Brainstorm a list of different words that describe the different aspects of the brand and just play with it.

Also, check out this post.

And, whatever you do, do NOT half-a$$ this. You want your branding to be on point.

 

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[Deon]

Hewlett-Packard (HP)
A&W
Abercrombie & Fitch
Barnes & Noble
Dolce & Gabbana
Johnson & Johnson
Procter & Gamble
Smith & Wesson

Sounds professional to me. Other companies with names that don't mean anything:

Google
Yahoo!
Nike
Amazon
Pepsi (better than Coke)

Bottom line. Pick something and roll with it. Your brand name won't sell your product until you do. Change it later if you want to.

Amazon does actually mean something

Amazon River = World's largest River --> Amazon = World's largest bookstore
Amazon Rainforest works too... Huge a$$ forest/jungle

 

[mosdef]

Thanks guys. Will pick something that is easy to write and say in mail. Will probably have to explain my name to people but that's OK. A chance to explain my business.

 

[Ninjakid]

Basically anything that doesn't infringe on registered trademarks will be fine, but my advice is pick something incredibly absurd that will get people to look into it because "what the hell kind of company would use the name '....'"

Comprende?

 

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[Mr.B]

Comprende for men...

 

[Andy Black]

Don't have something niche specific. You can't "pivot".


Apple Computers renamed themselves Apple.

Apple doesn't make computers, they challenge the status quo etc.

Apple Cars anyone?


Similarly:

• Amazon
• Google
• Yahoo
• Virgin

Where does Groupon go now that they aren't group coupons?


Also, pick a name that you can defend on Google.

If you're "GreatCarInsurance.com" and lots of people start searching for you in Google, then all the other car insurance brands can legitimately put "Great Car Insurance" in their ads, and your ad won't stand out. All your above the line advertising (TV, radio, print, etc) will just drive more people to search for your brand name, and your competitors will be waiting to hijack that traffic.


Best I've seen it done is here in Ireland.

There's an insurance company called 123.ie.

Their annoying little jingle on the radio and TV is:

1 2 3 dot i e ... just log on, and save mon-ey
​

(Google it, it's genius.)

What has 123.ie got to do with car or home insurance?

Nothing originally.

But now there's 14k searches a month for 123.ie, and they pick up those searches for peanuts, and probably at a 60%+ CTR. Competitors can't even get a look in on that search term.

There's 22k searches a month for [car insurance]. It's super competitive, expensive, and 123.ie sometimes don't even bother advertising on it.


What they've done is generate demand for a totally new search term (123.ie), and they are there on Google to fulfil the demand they've generated. No-one can put 123.ie into their ad and innocently pretend they aren't trying to "brand-jack".

So forget your exact-match-domain names for SEO ranking purposes, and pick something simple, memorable, currently meaningless (or encapsulates the virtues of your brand), and BRANDABLE.

Just my 2c


EDIT:

Somewhat related video (keep going to the end... it's a short vid, but a good way to view things): https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/the-online-buying-lifecycle-video.52809/

Fulfil demand before generating it.

And if there's no demand - still make sure you're there to fulfil it before you generate it.

 

[mosdef]

ha been thinking the whole day, seriously i have put maybe maybe 5-6 hours today nothing

 

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[Andy Black]

Good book I am listening to: "Start with Why"

 

[wade1mil]

fedsom.com

mosdef backwards.

what's next?

 

[mosdef]

fedsom.com

mosdef backwards.

what's next?

thanks im thinking of these now,

besbos.com
semboos.com
wooldan.com

dont feel any love for any of these. Does one have to feel any love and like yes lets goo with this one!

 

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[ljb7]

Remember that your brand name and your domain name don't have to be exactly the same, you can just add a prefix or suffix onto your domain name before or after the brand name:

Companies like square (squareup.com), dropbox (formally getdropbox.com), basecamp (formally basecamphq.com), box (formally box.net), even facebook (formally thefacebook.com). They all started with imperfect domain names and some even still use them!

 

[csalvato]

Google
Yahoo!
Nike
Amazon
Pepsi (better than Coke)

FWIW Nike is the greek goddess of victory...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nike_(mythology)

 

[3things]

Give this a try

http://www.naminum.com/

And/or this might be handy for you: http://shortdomainsearch.com/

 

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[mosdef]

does the logo and the brand name has to synch? On our logo there is a silhoutte of wizards face

 

[ljb7]

does the logo and the brand name has to synch? On our logo there is a silhoutte of wizards face

Your logo can be whatever you want. It would make sense to have your logo tie in with your brand name, though.

 

[mosdef]

qureich, is this to hard? I really like this name, but im thinking that people will have no idea how to spell it if i just say it to em

 

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[DennisD]

Amazon does actually mean something

Amazon River = World's largest River --> Amazon = World's largest bookstore
Amazon Rainforest works too... Huge a$$ forest/jungle

They named it Amazon for multiple reasons, mostly practical.

Amazon was originally called Kadabra because it was 'magical.'
Back then Yahoo was how you found new websites, and it was alphabetical, so they changed the name to "Amazon" so it'd be listed first for books/bookstores.

Also, Kadabra sounds too much like cadaver, which lead to confusion and bad connotations.

In the end, it almost doesn't matter what you name the company. By the time you're big enough that branding is a significant issue on your sales, you'll have the funds to change it anyway.

 

[Deon]

They named it Amazon for multiple reasons, mostly practical.

Amazon was originally called Kadabra because it was 'magical.'
Back then Yahoo was how you found new websites, and it was alphabetical, so they changed the name to "Amazon" so it'd be listed first for books/bookstores.

Also, Kadabra sounds too much like cadaver, which lead to confusion and bad connotations.

In the end, it almost doesn't matter what you name the company. By the time you're big enough that branding is a significant issue on your sales, you'll have the funds to change it anyway.

Yes, i've read the Kadabra and Yahoo story before... Was just saying Amazon means something to the person who said it had no meaning, that's it. I wasn't making a point about how to name a brand