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The name is the most important branding element. Period.
The name is the brand trigger. When it is said or read or thought, all the impressions, experiences and promises of the brand are brought to mind.
The name should fit the company, the product, the service. It should connote favorable associations and convey the essence of the brand. It is the focal point of all impressions created by
you and perceived by your customers and prospects. In addition, it should be memorable, unique, pronounceable, timeless and exclusively yours.
The name shoulders more than its share of successful brand development, growth and success.
When to name your business. Ideally, after you’ve put on paper a mission statement, a vision of what your company or product stands for, a plan to differentiate your business from competitors, a detailed description of the market targets you will serve, and a set of values by which your company will operate.
So, we recommend you develop your business plan and marketing strategies before beginning the naming process.
Only then can your name truly reflect the business or the brand. If the name comes first, there’s the job of molding and forging awareness and preference without benefit of a name that
compliments and bolsters other elements of brand development and promotional activities.
What makes a hardworking name? You’ll find
many lists of criteria for naming a company or a brand. Interpreting and consolidating those lists, we think the following key attributes should be present in every company name:
- Position the company within the markets it serves.
- Attract customers and prospects, usually by stating a benefit, specific or implied.
- Be memorable
- Be easily pronounced
- Have positive verbal associations and connotations.
- Be unique, not at all like competitor names.
- Be protectable.
Naming can be frustrating. Coming up with an
attractive and appropriate names isn’t too hard. The difficulty for most do-it-yourself namers is that they are unaware of the vast amount of naming activity that has preceded their efforts. So once you
get into determining if you have a truly unique name that can be protected or that isn’t someone else’s URL, you find your great and original ideas have been thought of and appropriated. Once the first
three or four great names bite the dust, frustration does set in and creativity seems to dry up.
Signature Strategies attacks this problem for our clients by generating up to a hundred names in the first iteration, and just as many in the next iterations if required before one unique
name bobs to the surface that no one else has preempted. We also do it with an objectivity that doesn’t dissipate our creative energies.
So if you’ve been struggling for a name that just won’t come, call us to relieve the pain.
Name classifications. There are many types or
classes of names, but the question is: “Who cares?” As long as there’s a name “out there” that fits and helps identify my business, should you care whether it’s a coined word or a regional landmark? The
answer: yes if you want a name you can trademark; yes if you don’t want to become just one more of a herd of companies like “Peoria Shale and Iodine”; yes if you’re looking to distinguish your company
with a unique and memorable name.
Many sources have established name classifications so we have, too. They are the ones used to analyze name usage of INC 500 Companies, listed below with short definitions and attributes.
- Surnames: Probably taken from a family name, but could also include made-up names that carry a certain connotation desirable to the company management. Many companies prosper under surname designation - Ford, Heinz, Coors, Johnson & Johnson - but it takes lots of time and money to turn a surname into a brand name. In the meantime, competitors can establish a coined name brand faster and usually at less cost.
- Geographic: Names taken from a geographic area, city, state, etc. Often a name could just as easily be a surname (Hamilton, Denver, Austin). When thinking about naming your business after your hometown, think of all the other businesses that have done that and ask yourself if you can stand out. Also, if you’re looking toward more that a municipal or regional market, will a home town name be too restricting?
- Initials/acronyms: These names are the alphabet soup of naming. It’s even more difficult to establish a three or four random letter name because there’s no context for the name. It means nothing until you’ve established, promoted and finally acquired an identity for which those initials stand. Almost all such names started as the initials of a company name that was just too long to use every time someone referred to it. Thus, International Business Machines become IBM, Thompson, Ramo Woolridge became TRW, Radio Corporation of America became RCA. Best to avoid the longer names and to resist using initials unless those initials also stand for something positive like MVP, TGIF or INC.
- Numeric/alphanumeric: Names that contain at least one numeral, perhaps in conjunction with a word or word part. Of course 7-Up and 3-in-1 Oil have been around for many years, but today there’s a trend toward mixing numbers with letters to make names. It works if there’s any kind of benefit or reason for the combination. Otherwise, the comments about initials apply here.
- Description/benefit: Here the names describe or impart a benefit of the product or service rendered by the company. These names most likely begin with an adjective. Although they may not be trademarkable, descriptive names and names that impart a benefit are usually strong, memorable and easily associated with a positioning statement and brand strategy.
- Classic/historic: Names referencing mythology or history, usually in the form of a character’s name. We have our share of names like Atlas, Titan and Hercules, as well as names associated with American and English history. They will usually conjure up an image on the part of the market, so they should be positive and non controversial. A product with a need for a heritage-linked name will probably search here
- Humorous/whimsical: These lighthearted names speak of themselves. They are often unique and unusual and are attention-getters. Their possible drawback is that the product isn’t taken seriously. That’s okay for bubble gum or computer games, but not for hydraulic lifts or microprocessors.
- Sentence/phrase: Multiword names, usually describing the business briefly. There is sometimes humor associated with them as well. This is a small but growing category. If a name should also be a meme, a phrase is usually required.
- Foreign: An American company adopting a foreign name for effect. Much like the historical name, a foreign name can impart heritage or class to a brand or company. But there should be some connection to that foreign culture or process or ingredient if it is to have long range credibility.
- Suggestive/symbolic: These names use “borrowed interest” to impart a positive connotation to their companies or products... think eagles and lions. Here the name connotes certain characteristics that the product, service or company wishes to associate with. Often a suggestive name can be so obscure that its significance is lost to the market (Janus, Aegis), and yet, the name may be unique enough that the symbology is not relevant. In this category, there’s the choice between a well-known and probably overused symbol, or a less-known, meaningless expression.
- Arbitrary: Names that are just different (Radish, Blue Tooth) have the advantage of uniqueness and initial double-take. Since they are arbitrary and may already carry connotations in themselves, be careful in applying them to a product or company. Personally, I don’t like radishes and blue teeth aren’t pleasant things to encounter. Well, Apple did it, although attributes of an apple were also the attributes they wanted to convey about their computers - familiar, simple and tasty.
- Coined - combined words: These names are fashioned by combining two words, but keeping both intact. Examples include RiteAid, Safeway, Fastrack. These are usually descriptive names as well, but since they combine two words, they may be trademarkable.
- Coined - fused: Here, the names are made up of two or more syllables from different words, or a word and an unexpected suffix. Logmatics, Univenture, Drypers are examples. These are names with a good potential for trademarkability, and they can imply what the business is all about.
- Coined - tacked/clipped: Names containing uncompleted or clipped common words. HazWaste, Indus, Adtran, DocuNet are examples of this category. Trademarking tacked or clipped names is high if no one else was there first. Again, they can partially describe a business.
- Coined - alternate spelling: Just by spelling one or more words differently, these names become unique even while basking in the original word’s light. Names like Futron, Tomkats, Astec fit this category, and like other coined words, stand a good chance of being trademarked if no one has beat you to it.
- Coined - artificial: These names are synthetic; arrays of letters with no meaning until the company establishes a meaning through the way they do business. Zima, Seta, Indus and are examples. Artificial names differ from initials in that you are able to pronounce them as words. They are trademarkable if they are not pronounced as a another trademarked or common word.
As with any name you wish to trademark, consult your attorney or an attorney specializing in intellectual properties and trademarks.
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