Shakespeare had it wrong, the name matters.
He was talking about romantic partners and not brand names, but even a girl in love is gonna hesitate to marry a guy whose last name is "Balls".
So while a company name might not be as important as the customer service, the solid product/service you provide, and the need you fill, a BAD NAME can hurt the customer experience, even if they otherwise love you.
Credentials: I've worked for hire as a Professional Namer. Yeah, it's a thing. I've worked with big brands like Google and Doritos to come up with new product names.
Here are some rules to follow in naming your brand or product:
-Make sure it spells like it sounds
TOO MANY companies violate this rule (I'm looking at you XanGo), and they waste precious time spelling it out for people.
CUSTOMER: So I just go to your website to order?
AGENT: Yeah. Xango.com
CUSTOMER: Okay, how do you spell that?
AGENT: It's like "mango" but with an "x".
CUSTOMER: "m-a-n-g-o-x"?
AGENT: No. Sorry, "x-a-n-g-o".
CUSTOMER: "x-a-n-g-o". Ahhh, I get it: "mango but with an 'x'".
AGENT: Bingo.
CUSTOMER: wait...so an "i" not and "a"?
AGENT: Damn it.
Multiply the above conversation by every phone call and in-person meeting you'll ever have and you'll wish you weren't so clever when you changed that "z" to an "x" years ago at the beginning.
-Keep it short and it'll last long
Short names travel well. This gives you flexibility to place it in various locations on social and physical media.
For example, it's kinda hard to fit I Can't Believe It's Not Butter on a small business card or email address (thirtyone@icantbelieveitsnotbutter.com), which means that people WILL abbreviate your brand name, which WILL weaken your brand name.
I'm betting that all internal communications at I Can't Believe (yikes) are shortened to ICBINB, rendering it a meaningless sequence of letters. Way to steal your own thunder.
-Make it unique and avoid descriptors
Google. Nike. Apple.
Pretty unique names in their industries, which makes them sticky and easy to remember. I mean, I've never heard of a tech company named Billion, or a shoe company named Zeus or Hercules. How about a computer company named Carrot?
Come out with a clothing company tomorrow named Chocolate Milk and you'd have an easy-to-remember name.
Of course, the value you provide will really make your name sticky. Hence, Google, Nike, and Apple will never be forgotten.
Descriptors kill any memorability, because our brains categorize descriptive words differently from pronouns or names. How many words do we have for "great"? "amazing", "good", "exceptional", "big", "grand", and on and on. How many words do we have for "carrot"? One.
The over-simple reason for this is that nouns are used objectively in language, and adjectives are subjective. You and I can talk about a carrot and we won't argue about whether or not it's a carrot, but we can argue for hours about whether or not that carrot is great, good, etc.
So, a name like Great Clips could easily be misremembered as Best Buzzes or Hot Haircuts or Clean Cuts. Of course, Great Clips is a big enough brand that they overcome that issue despite the potential weakness in the name.
-BONUS: Try to make sure your immediate reaction is visceral
Don't make people THINK about your name, because they won't. We have so many brands advertised to us EVERYDAY that our brains are great at tuning them out.
One way to do this is to borrow equity.
Many words have equity or meaning in the zeitgeist. For example, it's subtle, but Google gives connotations of a huge number or amount of something, making it feel big. And the company lives up to its name.
There's a manicure company in the Castro in San Francisco that wanted to snatch up the male market, but it's admittedly difficult to get most men to walk into a store that's says Nails or Beauty above the door.
Thus, Hand Job was born.
Conversely, you've got names like Analtech, a company that sells chromatography plates. They meant to combine the words "analytical" and "technology". If you go to their website, you can see that they have the name still but made it as small as possible. I wonder why.
That's all for now. There's more to naming, but thems the ones I can think of off the top.
And of course, come up with 100 names before you chose one, because by now you should be able to answer "What's in a name?"
It's a lot.
He was talking about romantic partners and not brand names, but even a girl in love is gonna hesitate to marry a guy whose last name is "Balls".
So while a company name might not be as important as the customer service, the solid product/service you provide, and the need you fill, a BAD NAME can hurt the customer experience, even if they otherwise love you.
Credentials: I've worked for hire as a Professional Namer. Yeah, it's a thing. I've worked with big brands like Google and Doritos to come up with new product names.
Here are some rules to follow in naming your brand or product:
-Make sure it spells like it sounds
TOO MANY companies violate this rule (I'm looking at you XanGo), and they waste precious time spelling it out for people.
CUSTOMER: So I just go to your website to order?
AGENT: Yeah. Xango.com
CUSTOMER: Okay, how do you spell that?
AGENT: It's like "mango" but with an "x".
CUSTOMER: "m-a-n-g-o-x"?
AGENT: No. Sorry, "x-a-n-g-o".
CUSTOMER: "x-a-n-g-o". Ahhh, I get it: "mango but with an 'x'".
AGENT: Bingo.
CUSTOMER: wait...so an "i" not and "a"?
AGENT: Damn it.
Multiply the above conversation by every phone call and in-person meeting you'll ever have and you'll wish you weren't so clever when you changed that "z" to an "x" years ago at the beginning.
-Keep it short and it'll last long
Short names travel well. This gives you flexibility to place it in various locations on social and physical media.
For example, it's kinda hard to fit I Can't Believe It's Not Butter on a small business card or email address (thirtyone@icantbelieveitsnotbutter.com), which means that people WILL abbreviate your brand name, which WILL weaken your brand name.
I'm betting that all internal communications at I Can't Believe (yikes) are shortened to ICBINB, rendering it a meaningless sequence of letters. Way to steal your own thunder.
-Make it unique and avoid descriptors
Google. Nike. Apple.
Pretty unique names in their industries, which makes them sticky and easy to remember. I mean, I've never heard of a tech company named Billion, or a shoe company named Zeus or Hercules. How about a computer company named Carrot?
Come out with a clothing company tomorrow named Chocolate Milk and you'd have an easy-to-remember name.
Of course, the value you provide will really make your name sticky. Hence, Google, Nike, and Apple will never be forgotten.
Descriptors kill any memorability, because our brains categorize descriptive words differently from pronouns or names. How many words do we have for "great"? "amazing", "good", "exceptional", "big", "grand", and on and on. How many words do we have for "carrot"? One.
The over-simple reason for this is that nouns are used objectively in language, and adjectives are subjective. You and I can talk about a carrot and we won't argue about whether or not it's a carrot, but we can argue for hours about whether or not that carrot is great, good, etc.
So, a name like Great Clips could easily be misremembered as Best Buzzes or Hot Haircuts or Clean Cuts. Of course, Great Clips is a big enough brand that they overcome that issue despite the potential weakness in the name.
-BONUS: Try to make sure your immediate reaction is visceral
Don't make people THINK about your name, because they won't. We have so many brands advertised to us EVERYDAY that our brains are great at tuning them out.
One way to do this is to borrow equity.
Many words have equity or meaning in the zeitgeist. For example, it's subtle, but Google gives connotations of a huge number or amount of something, making it feel big. And the company lives up to its name.
There's a manicure company in the Castro in San Francisco that wanted to snatch up the male market, but it's admittedly difficult to get most men to walk into a store that's says Nails or Beauty above the door.
Thus, Hand Job was born.
Conversely, you've got names like Analtech, a company that sells chromatography plates. They meant to combine the words "analytical" and "technology". If you go to their website, you can see that they have the name still but made it as small as possible. I wonder why.
That's all for now. There's more to naming, but thems the ones I can think of off the top.
And of course, come up with 100 names before you chose one, because by now you should be able to answer "What's in a name?"
It's a lot.
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