Your BRAND name DOES NOT matter!

Your BRAND name DOES NOT matter!

Well, maybe that’s a  bit of a farfetched statement, but I needed to grab your attention. The topic of today’s blog is how many entrepreneurs and marketers put a lot of effort and thought into their brand name. But it might not be as important as it seems at face value. It really comes down to what you decide to do with that brand name that matters the most.

Let me elaborate on that. IBM, Apple, Microsoft, Intel, Mars, Pepsi, Coke, Nestle...  the list goes on and on. Those are just a few examples of how a brand name on its own stood for no real resemblance to the business. But it's what they have done with that business that made the brand name stand for something great.

Let’s dissect this a little further by going back a couple of steps. What is the true purpose of a brand name? In its simplest definition, a brand name is a form of a signature that gives credit to the creator of a particular work or service and sets it apart from those created by others. Two of the main purposes of brand names are:

• Identification: To differentiate a particular product or service from other like or similar brands.

• Verification: To authenticate that a product or service is the genuine or desired article (instead of a generic or knock-off).

In other words, a brand name will encapsulate whatever values, proposition, know-how, operation model, customer experience, product features, etc.. that is connected with your business. It is the summary of all that you do. It is not the other way around, and hence it's best to focus on all the aspects of the business that will lead for that brand name to be recognized for the brand's true purpose or function.

In general, there are many types of brand names. They could be summarized into 7 main categories: 

1. Descriptive: Hotels.com / The Weather Channel / Bank of America
2. Evocative: Nike / Amazon / Virgin
3. Invented: Google / Pixar / Kodak
4. Lexical: Dunkin Donuts / Krispy Kreme / Flickr
5. Acronymic: BMW / HP / GEICO
6. Geographical: Kentucky Fried Chicken / American Airlines / New York Life
7. Founder: Ford / Mars / Kellogg’s

There are a lot of articles and books on the most important aspects of naming your brand, but honestly speaking, none of those huge brands you just read would not have been of any significance if it wasn’t for their operation model first and what they have done consistently throughout their history to make their brands stand out as what they are today. You could spend weeks thinking of brand names, but if you don’t perfect everything else about the brand for your consumer experience, then all that effort would have gone to waste.

I believe what’s more important when choosing a brand name is to focus on what NOT to call your brand name. Interesting right!? It is because, as humans, we might read a brand name and draw some preset conclusions or formulate a certain perspective on this brand. So what are the most serious mistakes that you must avoid when choosing a brand name?

 1- You haven’t considered branding and timing; this is a MUST. The look and feel, a.k.a. the brand image, is way more important than coming up with a brand name. If you haven’t considered this,  it will be tough to change consumer perception a few weeks down the line.  

 2- You picked a name that is too hard to say, hear or spell.

 3- You failed to do a trademark search.

 4- Your name is too generic or too descriptive.

 5- You haven’t researched your competitors' brand names.

 6- You’re following a short-term trend; your name will die with that trend

 7- You’re choosing a brand name just because its domain is available. 

     Please Don’t!

I hope you have found this marketing article helpful, feel free to write me at Shereba@brandmeup.co or leave a comment below. 

Until the next blog, have a good one. 

Shereba