Your goal for your brand name is to make it become part of your prospect’s vocabulary. You want your brand name to be known, respected and trusted by your prospects. You want them to hear the name and associate it with authenticity. Quite a challenge, eh? Maybe. But it is the one element that your brand may have to live with forever.
The competition to create a unique and powerful brand name is fierce. If you have ever done name searches, you probably figured out quickly that most of the good names are taken.
The competition for memorability in the mind of the customer is fierce, too. The human mind can retain perhaps 50,000 words, but there are more than a million trademarks out there in the marketplace vying for attention!
Buyers generally buy brands, not companies. Sure, there are successful companies whose names add credibility to any new brand they launch—Coca Cola, 3M and IBM are notable examples. But even in those cases, that credibility originally emerged from those companies’ brand identities.
Brand Name Types:
• Founder (H.H. Gregg & Sons)
• Descriptive (Brawny, Hefty)
• Fabrication (Google)
• Metaphor (Dove, Cougar, Jaguar, Thunderbird)
• Acronym (I.B.M., G.E. )
• Double Entendre (Staples)
• Composition (Sunkist, FedEx, Drano, Windex)
Wherever possible, a brand name should evoke appropriate and emotional images, establish some sort of kinship with the customer, and appeal to their personal taste. The name should sound pleasing when spoken. It should send a message that is sharp, precise and clear.
When testing names, test for:
1. Comprehension. They “get” your message
2. Recollection. They remember the name
3. Appeal. The name appeals to them psychologically and they are
motivated to investigate
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