How to Choose the Right Name for Your Company

What's in a name? Billions of dollars if it's a company or brand name

Names like Coca Cola. Mercedes Benz, Google are worth billions of dollars.
A company or brand name has equity that produces revenue for any business, regardless of it's size. That's why it pays to invest some time and money in selecting a name that will start producing dividends as quickly as possible.

A company or brand name is more than just a logo or identification. It's a projection of the entire image, personality and spirit of the company and the positive potential experience customers will enjoy using their products. This "image" combined with customers' perceptions and actual experience with the company and its products builds the equity that helps generate direct and indirect revenue for your business.

In developing a name and logo, there are various "textbook rules". But for every rule, there's an exception. That's why once you know the rules, it very often pays to break them. Just look at companies like Google and Yahoo.

The image your company or product wants to project is the first thing to consider. Your industry, products, competition and your customers are important elements in determining what your ideal image should be.

Begin by asking a very simple question "What is the single most important thing we want to come to mind when they see or hear our name?" Write down a list of the words and images that come to mind.

Your initial list will probably contain some interesting and conflicting words and images. It could include "cutting edge", "established", "corporate", "elegant" , "friendly" and "customer-focused". But that's ok. The idea is to generate words, images and ideas that will help decide on a name that will be right for your product or company.

At this stage, it pays to do a competitive analysis. List your major competitors by name along with the image their name brings to mind. This helps highlight opportunities to develop a unique name and image that stand out from the competition.

Strong Brand names are unique and memorable. Names like Google, Yahoo, Jet Blue, are unique, easy to remember and tend to build awareness and equity quickly. Mundane, more generic names like All-American, Ace or Global aren't unique and are easily confused with one another.

The name should also be simple and easy to spell. Names that are spelled differently than they sound confuse people. It's also important to have easy to spell names to make Search Engine Marketing more effective.

Customers and distributors like companies and products whose names are easily pronounced. People generally don't like to hassle with companies or products with names they can't even say.

Names containing obscure, technical, or foreign words are generally not effective for most products. However there are exceptions - Quark Express, Ronzoni, Nautica, and of course Google are very successful company names.

Very often companies choose names that are too long. Not only are they a mouthful to say and more difficult to remember, long names also pose problems in advertising, packaging, store signs and business card designs. Very often customers and distributors shorten the name ultimately forcing the company to change it's name to the abbreviated popular version. Before finalizing a company name, be sure to consider where that name will be appearing. Shorter names are almost always better.

It's also important to take into consideration that many words have different literal and associated meanings. Gay, for example, can mean both happy and homosexual. It's also a fairly common last name and a woman's first name.

Cross-cultural images and word associations also need to be considered when selecting a company or brand name, especially if you're planning to market internationally - or on the Internet which is by definition a "global media". Ignoring the cross-cultural impact of a name or image has proven painful for many companies.

The Chevy Nova name proved a poor choice for Spanish-speaking countries and customers because in Spanish "no va" means "no go" - not the ideal name for a car.
Mitsubishi had a similar experience with a vehicle they initially named the "Pajero". The company thought the literal meaning of the word, "a straw merchant cart" would bring to mind dependability and reliability. Unfortunately, the term Pajero, in some Latin-speaking countries has a colloquial meaning with negative sexual connotations. The company had to rename the product "Montero".

Company icons and images can pose cross-cultural challenges too. Mack Truck's bulldog conveys an image of toughness and durability in almost every major country of the world, except China. In China, dogs aren't highly regarded or considered "man's best friend". The company excludes the bull dog image and any references from advertising in that company.

These are only a few of the countless cross-cultural blunders companies make. It pays to consult a cross-cultural marketing company before naming a company or product if you're planning to do business globally or even cross-culturally here in the US.

Once you've gone through the seemingly endless process of developing and agreeing upon a name, be sure to have a lawyer or other knowledgeable professional verify it can legally be used.

Even if you're a very small company, it pays to invest the time and money to select the right company or product name. Remember big names like Coca Cola, Mercedes and Google were once small companies too.