“Logos and branding are so important. In a big part of the world, people cannot read French or English ― but are great in remembering signs”
― Karl Lagerfeld
And what about brands?
We live in the brands era. They rule the world. And if you would like to succeed and stand out, you need to make it exceptional.
The brand name looks like a child, it is born in the throes, cries loud to declare its appearance, and makes its creator the happiest person. Though, it is just he beginning of the long and hard way.
Truly, everyone who decided to start own business spends hundreds of hours working on the development of the «child», thinking about its perspectives, and competition with others.
So, no wonder that the company's name also is very important for its creator. It is the child's name, which either will help it to improve faster, or prevent success.
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According to marketing researches brand name has to be as simple as possible, because it needs to be memorable uppermost.
Indeed, a lot of prosperous companies have simple, ordinary brand names, like Apple, Nike, Twitter, etc. But not all of them came up with catchy brand name initially. Some of the world-known companies shortened their names later, after getting an experience being in the market with pilot name.
Sometimes they changed the names on purpose, sometimes due to externals. Anyhow, the shortening helped these companies to reach their goals and become popular.
Let's see, which methods of reducing your company's name you could use to make your brand much recognizable and sapid.
1. Take the path of least resistance.
Yes, you could do it occasionally.
Skype creators have taken this path. At first, this company name sounded like Sky Peer-to-Peer, referring to communication technology. After some reflections company's owner decided to shorten it to Skyper. And now we all would using Skyper instead of Skype, if there were free domain names with «skyper». But there were just «skype» domains and developers accepted that and registered domain Skype.com.
This name changing definitely helped them to succeed.
First of all, it has just one syllable, which makes it as simple as possible.
Second, it is associated with word «type», which is better than association with peer-to-peer networking, that are unclear definition for the majority of users.
“Sometimes the bad things that happen in our lives put us directly on the path to the most wonderful things that will ever happen to us.”
― Nicole Reed
The creator of Ebay has chosen this path too. He wanted to name his Internet shop EchoBay, his computer consulting company had such name then. But the domain was taken. So, he shortened the name to Ebay.
It was lucky changing too, as particle «e» sounds like «electronic», which represents the company's activity splendidly.
And there is no reason to tell about the Ebay prosperity, right?
These cases prove that the most right things happen all of a sudden, and even without experts' approval.
2. Be unpredictable.
However, your creativity and thinking out of the borders could be your lucky ticket. Cisco owners' experience confirmed it.
Their love to city they lived in and inner freedom let them create extremely simple, but unusual brand name. Cisco is the last part of the word “San Francisco”. They just cut the excess part.
Thereby, they got unique, fresh name, but kept the word recognition. And then, as you know, took over the technical world in their niche.
“It is our task, both in science and in society at large, to prove the conventional wisdom wrong and to make our unpredictable dreams come true.”
― Freeman Dyson
Another example of nonstandard intellection is brand name 3M. Originally the company was called Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company. Instead of making abbreviation or using small parts of words to create a new one, founders simply changed the name to 3M.
It is easy to remember, short and intriguing, which make customers want to get to know what these three «m» actually mean.
Adding a small piece of your life to the brand name makes it home to the owner, and customers appreciate such emotions.
3. Listen to your audience.
People like to give nicknames, and these nicknames usually are shorter version of full names. Time and again, these names stick to the people and there is no way to return your original name the former glory and popularity. So, you need to accept your new line.
Internet shop AsSeenInScreen went through this. The company started its business as a shop that sales clothes exactly like celebrities wear. Soon it becomes super popular, but somehow customers started calling it ASOS.
The business owners didn't accept such name for a long time, but eventually they take it officially. And, certainly, it was the right decision. As if customers are so into your business, that create a special name for it, you have already succeeded. And take audience opinion into consideration just strengthen your success.
“There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.”
– Sam Walton
These tips show us that in the brand naming there is no place for fear or limitations. When you aren't afraid of failure, and believe in your success, there is no way you pick the wrong brand name.
Nevertheless, if you have already been looking for a perfect brand name for a long time, or you think there is a better brand name for your business, and you couldn't come up with something fresh, take a look on successful companies mentioned above. And be that guy who learned from mistakes made by others.
The clever one.
Author's bio: Jonathan Brahmson is an entrepreneur and a creator of online project http://pay4homework.com/. His job requires him to trim the sails to the wind and find the new ways for self-improvement. He believes everything is possible.
