10 Name Game Rules
Naming a company, product, or service can be a slam dunk or an excruciatingly painful process. As a brander, I rarely see the middle ground here. In over half of our Branding Maps™, the name becomes an issue. Once we figure out a branding promise, the true north for the brand, it becomes obvious that the name needs an adjustment. In about 20% of our brandings, a totally new name is needed. What is in a name? Here are a few guidelines to help you though the process:
Ten Name Game Rules
- Use your branding promise to determine your brand name – Your branding promise is the true north for your marketing. It should guide you through your entire brand and create uniformity among all aspects of your company. The branding promise is where you plant your flag as a company. So your name must follow the branding promise’s lead if you want to have a cohesive, congruent brand.
- Your Handle Must Not Exceed 3 Syllables – Out of Inc. Magazine’s Top 50 Fastest Growing Companies, the average handle (what people really call your company) has 2.4 syllables. For example: Orbit Design is 4 syllables but most people just use our handle and say “get Orbit (2 syllables) on the phone”. Go beyond 3 syllables and your branding will be destroyed with an acronym.
- Avoid Acronyms At All Costs – Again out of the Inc. Magazine’s Top 50 Fastest Growing Companies, the only acronyms used are by holding companies or companies that go to the market with a properly branded product. Acronyms are only acceptable in the high tech arena, where all the good names are saved for playing Dungeons and Dragons. Acronyms are brand killers. SuperSoft Pillows becomes meaningless as SSP. SSP is fine but it will cost twice as much to get it to stick among market.
- Suggestive Names Rock – Names that suggest your branding promise, a benefit, a core competency, or client pain (ex. BugBusters) are optimum.
- Feels And Sounds Good – Names that are easy and fun to say, with just one or two crisp, crunchy, and chunky syllables are desirable. Sometimes, if the name is enhanced with alliteration, rhyme, or double meaning, the name becomes easier to say and remember.
- Memory = Everything – If a name has enough traction that it makes people say “Well, I won’t be forgetting that name will I?”, then you have a winner. A winning name can sometimes even have negative connotations and still be a thriving brand name. Graphic names, or names that call up a visual image, are also effective (Think Apple or Jet Blue).
- Fanciful Names Are Fine – The trademark office refers to names that don’t suggest a benefit as “fanciful”. The name of your musical group or interior design firm must be fanciful. In an effective logo there are three parts: the name, the core competency, and the slogan. Of the three, the name can easily be the most fanciful. What does Yahoo, or Google or iPod really mean?
- Generic Means You are Lazy and You Will Pay – Give your company or product a generic name (as in General Builders or Rocky Mountain “fill in the blank”) and you will be punished for your negligence. You will have to pay upwards of four times as much to go to your market. In any competitive situation you will lose.
- Simple = Better – Okay, the drug companies pay tens of thousands of dollars for “pieces parts” simulated product names like Paxil, Zantac, and Prozac. Simulated names can work if the pieces parts are suggestive as in rule #3. But, easy to say, and easy to spell endears your name to clients and makes it easy to sell. Difficult names, in these days, are almost an insult to time-starved consumers.
- Do Not Let GoDaddy Determine Your Name – Web address availability should not determine your company’s name. Only 1% of surfers find you by typing in your name. They will use a search engine and if your name is Lucky Joe’s Restaurant and you come up www.xrwmzrs.com in Google, they will simply click, go to your site, and then add you to “favorites”. Instead of GoDaddy, the U.S. Office of Patents and Trademarks database www.uspto.gov and the advice of a good lawyer are better guides for finalizing a name.
Of course, all rules are made to be broken; in the name game, this is especially true. Many people get the disease that we like to call Paralysis by Analysis when naming their company. As you get feedback though, every name will have its detractors. So leadership should make a strategic decision based on positive potential for the company’s brand.
Brand well and prosper!
Andy Cleary