David Placek
With a slowing venture capital (VC) market and potentially less money for disruptive startups, those looking to attract capital need a strong brand now more than ever. A strong brand starts with its name — nothing will be used more often or for longer. Plus, it’s the one thing your competitors can’t take away from you.
A brand name is a cornerstone that immediately impacts consumers and investors. In today’s digital and global economy, it can mean the difference between a brand that is immediately remembered or completely forgotten.
Brand names are much more than simple labels and clever descriptors. They can serve as powerful marketing tools for creating or changing consumer perceptions and as the first step in constructing an entirely new market.
Startups in particular need names that signal the company and its products are about the future, not the past. They need a company name that shapes their brand image, resonates with their target market, and supports their business plan.
A brand name is usually the first thing a potential customer sees or hears for software and other digital intangible products. In entirely new industries that are just emerging, brands need distinct breakthrough names to generate interest and early market share.
When we partner with startups to develop new names, we use an internal checklist to ask if our recommendations pass the test. Here are five questions we ask ourselves to ensure the names we create for startups are memorable, distinctive, and stand out from the crowd.
Is the name an original idea?
Don’t be fooled by the adage that a good brand name tells your story. That’s impossible to do with just one word. Instead, brand names are the foundation upon which your brand’s story is built. Do you want to build on a foundation of rock or sand?
The reality around a rock-solid brand name is that breaking through the clutter is challenging. We’re exposed to 6,000 to 10,000 daily ads promoting a different brand. The public will only take an interest in new or novel ideas. Everything else is routine.
The electric luxury vehicle Lucid is a noteworthy example of an original idea in the auto space. Lucid is a real English word (an adjective unusual for a car name), conveying intelligence and awareness. The name’s sound indirectly communicates efficiency and the quiet sanctuary that is the driver’s experience. It certainly does not sound like a typical car name.
Appboy had an original idea, but their name was anything but original. The go-to platform for customer engagement needed a powerful name to support their market domination. They chose Braze — a word from the world of welding that is more commonly recognized as a clipping from the common term “brazen,” meaning bold and without shame. As a punchy brand name with an intrepid attitude, Braze perfectly captures the company’s promise to connect brands to their consumers better. Appboy? Conventional. Braze? Original.
Does the name make the audience think?
The best names free your audience to imagine. Brand names should be created to generate interest and suggest a story. When we created Swiffer for Procter & Gamble, we tested the name with busy moms and dads. Just hearing and seeing the name Swiffer, they imagined a more effortless, joyful cleaning experience before we told them anything about the product’s features or benefits.
Consider this: If the name Swiffer had been “ProMop,” would it have suggested a more effortless, joyful cleaning experience? Doubtful. When you make it easy to imagine, you make it easy to purchase.
Beyond picturing what the product may be from its name, ask yourself if the name inspires your audience to think. Influential names focus on being remarkably distinctive and noteworthy. They give power to new ideas and confidently lead your audience to conclude that your new product has a story and can help your audience rethink expectations about the category itself.
Using arbitrary words is another great way to make your audience lean in and inquire about your brand. Sync Inc., an innovative software that allows developers to sync data from various services into a single database, significantly boosts developers’ productivity.
Sync Inc., a clunky and descriptive name, did not echo the company’s desire to be more notable, engaging, and ownable. That’s why we proposed Sequin, a name that sparkles and grabs attention (quite literally). The phonetic similarities between Sequin and “sequence” or “seeking” inspire associations with data, answers, and orderly systems. Sequin not only sparks a connection to SQL (the query language that this software supports), but it also makes consumers stop and ask, “What are these guys about?”
Is the name unforgettable?
Since January 2023, there have been more than 750,000 trademark filings across all 45 classes in North America. Given the overabundance of trademarks, a name that blends in won’t work.
Simply put, if your brand name is forgettable, you will lose. To influence a consumer’s choice, you must control what they remember. One way to be unforgettable is to break the traditional rules. Ensure your new name looks different, sounds different, and acts differently.
Take the example of Google. Google appeared distinctive, playful, and unforgettable in a sea of mundane search engine brands like Infoseek and Web Crawler. Memorable names make it easier for consumers to buy your product.
We also know that imagery is one of the best ways to boost brand name memorability. A great example of this is the American software company Red Hat. The accessible, tangible essence of “red” and “hat” amplifies recall. In a sea of cold, tech-focused software names, Red Hat boldly stands out.
If the name is the most popular with your team, try again
The most popular names are usually the most comfortable, and there is no power in comfort when naming. Oscar Wilde once said, “An idea that isn’t dangerous is hardly worth calling an idea at all.” In branding, this follows suit — the best names involve some risk.
One piece of advice we give clients is to foster dissent when evaluating names internally. We encourage clients to voice polarized reactions since the most significant new ideas are often contrarian. Take Intel’s Pentium, for example. What became one of Intel’s most famous billion-dollar processors, Pentium once caused a stir among Intel’s internal team, with one team member remarking that it was a terrible name that sounded like toothpaste.
Another widely successful brand name is Microsoft’s Azure. However, using a color for the name of Microsoft’s new cloud-based platform, bolstering them as a provider of web technologies, caused mixed reactions among the internal team.
Perhaps Microsoft’s then CEO and arguably most crucial decision-maker disliked Azure! However, Azure’s definition of the clear sky’s blue color perfectly signaled the cloud-based platform’s open-ended, flexible nature. It appealed to IT professionals, software developers, and consumers alike. Ultimately, Azure proved to be a highly effective name that supports the now billion-dollar brand.
Will it make your competitors grimace?
Since a registered brand name is the one thing your competitors cannot take away from you, it must make them wince every time they see it. If you think they’ll shrug it off or create something better, take the name off the list. Be unique, disruptive, and calculated when taking risks with your name.
Nothing makes your competitors wince more than having a brand name equally as daring as your company’s goals. Impossible Foods delivers on this challenge. The company leading the charge in the vegan alternatives category took a strategic risk and chose the name Impossible to support their company’s bold mission of making the global food system more sustainable. As for making their competitors grimace? It’s, in fact, very possible.
Vercel, formerly Zeit, is another excellent example of a jealousy-evoking name. As a San Francisco–based tech startup, the Vercel team knew they were in a massive competition market. The go-to collaboration platform for developers needed a name to communicate the efficiency, excellence, and strength of their rapid development platform while being short, globally accessible, and legally protectable.
The seamless, smooth, yet energetic nature of the fully coined name is what other technology companies wish for. We should know — clients have asked us for a name like Vercel!
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