Establishing a firm with a memorable name increases your chances of success in the marketplace. At the very least, you'd avoid the bad press accompanying brand names like Sculpting Stix, Human Made, and Celebutard.
Branding blunders are nothing uncommon; after all, making mistakes is human nature. But certain blunders, such as failure to come up with an engaging product or brand name, shouldn't be one of them.
Many founders struggle to develop strong brand names for their businesses, and that frequently leaves them making costly mistakes.
But before we get into how you can get an error-free name, let's take a look at why excellent brand names are essential.
Why Are Excellent Branding Names Critical?
Startups and established businesses with uninteresting names usually find it difficult to capture customers’ attention.
But even though the average customer is already bombarded with countless brands, if you have a powerful brand name, your company would have a smooth job of capturing people's attention.
And that's because a fantastic brand name will always stand out among the sea of uninteresting names in any industry.
When you think about well-known brands like Google and Sony, it's evident that these companies learned from their experience that they needed memorable names.
And if you take a careful look at what's been happening in the market, you'd notice that many brands with weak names have rebranded themselves with short and memorable names.
Just like these brands, when looking for your business's name, focus on names that mirror your company’s value, big ideas, and the promises you're making to your audience base. This would help you build a strong first impression with customers.
Depending on the type of business you're running, you can choose a brand name that represents traits like creativity, prestige, speed, and expertise. These values, when clearly communicated, can serve as a powerful magnet for attracting your target customers.
The Consequences of Using an Inappropriate Name
Your business's branding, specifically its name, is the lens through which your business is seen by your customers. Giving your company an inappropriate name like iBeat Blaxx can be damaging for any business.
They’re several things that can go wrong with an inappropriate brand name, from a lack of interest by consumers to lawsuits and public backlash. But all these problems can be amplified by social media.
Since its introduction, social media has been a game-changer for companies. It has helped companies grow by increasing brand recognition and enables clients to provide feedback to their favorite companies.
But it has also enabled customers to spot faults in a brand and quickly express their displeasure. And this can have serious consequences for inappropriate names.
If not handled quickly, an inappropriate name will often lead to:
- Boycotts: Like the one between UCLA and Walmart.
- Brand Cancelling: a great example was the backlash Gillette received for its toxic masculinity ad.
- Scandals and Damaged Company's Image: Aunt Jemima is a clear example of what could happen if you choose an offensive business name.
- Lawsuits: Like the one filed by Iceland (the country) against Iceland (the company).
- Investors And Major Business Partners Exit: Advertisers are usually the first to boycott brands they feel will harm or drag their brand down.
- Forced rebranding: We saw this happen to Subway when it had to change its name from Pete’s Super Submarines to Subway due to the previous name’s complexity. And yes, the company didn't want a name that'd be mistaken for ‘Pizza submarine.’
With all these at stake, finding the best name for new entrepreneurs would be a challenge. So, we spoke with several company owners and learned that they always use either of these three approaches to come up with amazing brand names for their companies:
- Brainstorming
- Using a trusted business name generator
- Hiring a naming agency
However, regardless of which path you choose, there are a few traits to check for if you want your business name to leave a lasting impact on your customers.
Three Common Naming Mistakes to Look out for
1. Names With Questionable Meanings
Buyers have strong feelings about sensitive social problems. So if your business decides to pick a side on such issues—even if it doesn’t appear on your brand's name—you can still suffer huge losses because you’ve made an enemy of those on the other side.
It's like joining a fight and choosing a side; your audience on the other side will quickly realize that their favorite brand doesn't align with their values but has a counter stand on what they feel strongly about. Your only real opponents should always be your competitors and no one else.
Names like ‘Typo,' and ‘Yikes,' two awful words that Colourpop adopted for their darkest shades of cosmetics, were interpreted by the average consumer as a racist product. And these customers didn't just criticize, they also boycotted the brand.
Also, remember that in whatever you're doing, customers can't distinguish between a company's activities and those of its owner or CEO. As a result, it's vital to avoid or manage any sensitive subject like politics with extreme skill; otherwise, your firm might end up like MyPillow, Harry's Razor, or Gillette.
If you want to make a favorable impression on your customers, make sure your brand name is devoid of subtle insults or political messages. Also, ensure it's unrelated to prevailing social problems.
2. Weak Branding Names
Short and simple names are ideal since they are simple to comprehend and locate on the internet. Customers will be attracted to business names that are easy, straightforward, and memorable.
If your company's name is too complex, you risk losing customers to competitors with simple, original, and fascinating names.
It may surprise you that more than 80% of customers forget about branded merchandise within three days. Therefore, the best way to help make your brand unique is to keep it short and simple (the KISS rule).
Many businesses overlook the importance of choosing an appealing business name, ignoring that Apple, Twitter, and Target used their strong brand names to position themselves in customers' minds.
Instagram's rebranding from “Burbn,” a weaker name than Instagram, was the catalyst for the company's growth. The same is true for Nike, Sony, and several other brands.
Customers don't react as eagerly to difficult names as to simple and creative names. As a result, when naming your company, your objective is to create a name that customers will remember immediately.
3. Unpleasing Foreign Translations
People will encounter your company worldwide through commercials, coincidence, or when making online purchases. The world now is one big unified market, and often customers really don’t care where the product is coming from but will still feel repelled when the brand has an unpleasant name.
Since this can be a big threat to your company's success in the foreign market, when searching for a brilliant brand name, you must take adequate precautions to conduct extensive research to ensure that the name chosen is not offensive to consumers in other regions.
Several companies have names that mean something else in other languages, which is why sometimes the same product may have different names in another market.
However, products like Mazda's Laputa, which is Spanish for “The Whore,” the Iranian detergent “Barf,” and Nokia's popular mobile phone, Lumia, which is also a Spanish slang term for “prostitute,” are clear signs that translations do matter. In the end, Nokia's Lumia, just like Mazda's Laputa, was quickly abandoned by Spanish buyers.
So, whether you're running a small business or a multinational corporation, remember that it is important to consider how people in different regions of the world perceive and connect with your brand name. Awareness of these issues can prevent unfavorable publicity, a reduced consumer base, and declining sales.
Yes, you can't possibly check the translation of your business name in all the languages in the world. Do your best to get the meaning in the top languages and markets you’ll want to enter. You can also consider the major languages of foreigners present in your locality if you intend on starting a local business.
Conclusion – Always Respect your Customers!
The most difficult thing to accept about branding is that little flaws and mistakes can easily destroy your branding effort and negatively define your entire organization in the eyes of your customers.
Very few people would actually care that you spent thousands or millions of dollars building that brand. The rest would just see your brand as another failing business to avoid.
It is important to note that a poor brand name is generally the outcome of a business owner failing to address their organization's and clients' primary demands. This may happen if they don’t have sufficient information about their customer base to know what these needs are.
As we’ve mentioned earlier, branding is about your customers and their perception of your company. So, while branding, remember that you aim to shape their perception of you. For this reason, make sure your business has a strong brand identity that clients can appreciate so as not to end up with names that don't truly capture your brand's personality, offend customers, and are difficult to market.
Grant Polachek is the head of branding for Squadhelp.com, 3X Inc 5000 startup and disruptive naming agency. Squadhelp has reviewed more than 1 million names and curated a collection of the best available names on the web today. We are also the world's leading crowdsource naming platform, supporting clients such as Nestle, Dell, Nuskin, and AutoNation
