The right name sticks in the brain automatically. RealDreamBrands offers several approaches to choosing the right name for your business.
Brain Based Names
The easiest names to remember incorporate a familiar word or concept with a less familiar one which is often mismatched to generate curiosity. The result causes the brain to loop or double take rather than immediately discard.The idea here is to stimulate the most powerful human emotion – curiosity! Think about Adam and Eve with the forbidden fruit.
Great examples which incorporate this strategy:
Taco Bell – What does a Bell have to do with a Taco? (The brain unconsciously asks).
Starbucks – Star is familiar – bucks is mismatched. What does star have to do with bucks?
Microsoft – Micro is unfamiliar – Soft is familiar. To the brain this demands further investigation.
Apple Computer – Apples are familiar – Computers are Mysterious.
Victoria’s Secret – Incorporates mystery and sensuality as an underlying meaning with two terms that are not necessarily related to one another.
Babelgum – This is a new web brand – Babel: unfamiliar – Gum: familiar. But possibly a little too irrelevant and non-descriptive to get much casual attention. As users begin to interact with the product: or the name is promoted – it may take on more meaning. It may also create curiosity for its target market. Many people will ask – “what the heck is babelgum”??
Conceptual Names and Motivation.
Real Dream Brands is a concept and motivation based name that attempts to tap into the deeper motivations of its target market – the courageous visionary with limited resources but big dreams. Our slogan: “Dream Big – Make it Real”: supports the main brand name concept. Our symbols visually represent all the pieces of a plan coming together into a coherently focused vision. Our child image taps into the creative wonder and hope still present in all of us.
Lingo Social Names
Certain trendy social niches can get away with inventing a whole new name. Because let’s face it – to get into certain social clubs – you have to speak the language. To get in the door you have to know the secret words.
Many technical fields which involve intelligence are socially regarded as high-status groups. Therefore they tend to have specialized lingos. Examples are medicine and law. Computers and the Internet fall under that same magical, mysterious perception. The Google name is a strange new term that is also subtly familiar. The branders took a technical product and made it personal. The Google name still retains some of that mystique while Yahoo is even more casual – and is therefore taken less seriously.
Examples of status oriented names that depend on externally derived meaning: Joop & Drakkar Perfumes, Hummer, Lexus, Rolex.
A new example is Pei Wei. A trendy asian restaurant franchise.
You are FORCED to Think About a Good Name
Each of these strategies accomplish the same thing as the brain method by causing the customer to have to THINK about the concepts or strange words. Another great example is an up-and-coming musical act called “Cassettes Won’t Listen”. When I saw this the first time I HAD to stop and think about it for a few seconds – because its familiar: but it doesn’t automatically make sense to the brain. It requires further investigation to figure it out. Result? Total Recall!
Legacy Names
Legacy names with pre-existing meaning. If you have already built up meaning and public perception associated with your pre-existing name: don’t throw it away. This meaning is valuable capital.
Eventually you may want to go the route of KFC and IHOP. These names were shortened from their original length.
KFC used to be Kentucky Fried Chicken
IHOP used to be The International House of Pancakes
Another small brand example is a local plumbing company – they used to be called Drains For Less. This was shortened to DFL Plumbers. Shorter acronyms have greater recall benefit as long as meaning and momentum have already been attached.
Most of these brands underwent a transformation of their image at the time of shortening their name. This included changing their symbols, colors, and verbiage to match better with the current energy of their market.
Most successful ideas are a balance of something old and something new. The KFC logo retained the image of the Colonel and Taco Bell retained an image of their classic bell.
At the time of these changes many of these brands were able to boost their sales by over 40%.
Spelling Pitfalls
One client had a brand called Curvy Xpressions. She was cautioned that this name would not support total recall because the viewer or listener probably wouldn’t remember her spelling. It was recommended that she change it to CurvyTemptations. She had already invested money in her current domain and website – so it took a bit of will to make the shift. Subsequently she went on a small format web tv show and got over 5000 visitors from a single verbal mention of her name. Temptations is also more memorable and provocative because it taps into the motivations of her buyers more effectively.
The Xcite search-engine brand is another mispelling “has-been”.
The Dot Com Test
Millions of dot com domain names have already been taken. However if you are original you will find something that is all yours. If someone else already got it – you need to brainstorm some more. This can also potentially save you from trademark infringement legal issues.