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Monday, September 26th, 2011

5 Basic Rules To Consider Before Naming Your Product

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I re-read the must-read marketing book Positioning: The Battle For Your Mind (#13 on my 20 Best Business Books Of All Time list) over the summer.

It inspired this simple list of naming tips (which I think is a good foll0w-up to 5 Tips On How To Name Your Brand To Be As Dominant As Kleenex).

How To Name A Product: 5 Basic Rules To Consider

1) Include Your Prospect’s Major Benefit  (Or Pain & Urgency)

Close-Up Toothpaste shows a clear benefit about making your teeth look better.

Shake ‘n Bake (for cooking chicken) tells you the two simple steps — you shake (the herbs) and you bake (the chicken) — to make tasty chicken.

You may also consider the pain or urgency that your customer has.

For example, if you have dandruff and you want to address the flakes on your shoulders as well as shampoo your hair, Head & Shoulders shampoo is a darn good name.

2) Be Almost, But Not Quite, Generic

Microsoft names its product because it focused on “micro”-computer “soft”ware.

Kentucky Fried Chicken is self-explanatory. People Magazine is pretty good too.

But don’t go too generic, warns the book Positioning: “Lite” beer from Miller was the industry leader but it lost its brand positioning when other beers co-opted the name (Bud Light, Coors Light, etc.).

The law sided with those competitors since “Lite” is generic and so similar to “Light” (as in opposite of heavy).

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Saturday, February 12th, 2011

The Best Examples of Alliteration in Business, Brands & Other Stuff

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I was intrigued when I noticed that at least 10 of the The Top 100 Synonymous Genericized Brands I posted included alliteration: brands like PowerPoint, RotoRooter, Google and Armor All.

What is alliteration?

From http://www.flickr.com/photos/33977223@N08/3584710648

The Most Alliterative Man On Earth? (Jesse Jackson is alliterative in speeches, has alliteration in his name and likes to attend Million Man Marches)

The definition of alliteration is repeating the same sound in two or more words in close succession, such as:

“She sells sea shells by the sea shore.”

Alliteration is widely accepted in the research/scientific community as a tool to enhance memory.^

While alliteration in such toungue-twisters (there are also many in poems and songs) is fun — I’ve been thinking about alliteration in business and brands lately.

So, I’ve compiled a list of examples of alliteration used for commercial purposes (e.g. company names, products, real-life and fictional personalities and even fruit, sayings and other stuff).

Retailers

  • American Apparel
  • Bed, Bath & Beyond

    • …

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Wednesday, February 9th, 2011

5 Tips On How To Name Your Brand To Be As Dominant As Kleenex

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How do you create a “Kleenex”-like brand that is synonymous with its product category?

After I crafted The Top 100 Colloquial Brands, I came up with some observations about these brands that might be good tips for you to use to name your brands.

Enjoy!

 

5 Tips On How To Create A Colloquial/Genericized Brand

1) Use Alliteration

Top brands use alliteration, which is typically defined as using the same sounding first syllable sequentially. Examples of alliteration in the Top 100 Colloquial Brand list I did include:

  • Yo-Yo
  • Ping Pong
  • Powerpoint
  • Google
  • Roto Rooter
  • Armor All

Alliteration is sometimes more broadly defined as using the same sound of any syllable when said in sequence,; using that definition, you would also add these Top 100 Brands as examples of alliteration:

  • Zipper
  • Swiffer
  • Dramamine
  • Kleenex (since most people pronounce it “Kleen-nex”)

An even broader interpretation of alliteration in which the last syllable has the same sound would allow us to include Mack Truck to the list.

Check out The Best Examples of Alliteration in Business & Brands piece I did for even more on the subject.

2) Use Descriptive Words In Your Brand

Many top genericized brands include a word that describes the purpose of the product. Examples include:

  • Scotch Tape
  • Astro Turf
  • Saran Wrap
  • Ace Bandage
  • Plexiglas
  • Kool-Aid
  • Krazy Glue

Note: You’ll note that some of the descriptive words are spelled differently (such as “Glas” or “Kool”)

And you can of course use two or more descriptive words in a row like:

  • Roller-Blade
  • Chap-stick
  • Super Heroes
  • Wite-Out
  • Photo-shop
  • Zip-loc
  • Zip-Car
  • Shredded Wheat

3) Keep Your Brand Name Short (2 To 3 Syllables Is Ideal)

Amazingly, 86% of the top 100 Colloquial Brands are two or three syllables long.

Ten percent of the Top 100 are four syllables long and 4% are one syllable long.

You’ll note that NONE of the Top 100 contain more than four syllables…interesting!

4) Use Words That Can Act As Nouns AND Verbs

  • Video Tape
  • Scotch Tape
  • Bubble Wrap
  • Astro-Turf
  • Rollerblade
  • Hacky Sack
  • Wite-Out
  • PowerPoint
  • Skype
  • Google
  • Jet Ski
  • FedEx
  • Swiffer
  • Xerox
  • Krazy Glue
  • Zamboni

5) Use Your Family Name As Inspiration

Don’t be afraid to use your family name. Examples of family-inspired names include:

  • Jacuzzi — Seven Italian brothers in the Jacuzzi family immigrated to the U.S. and created an aircraft propeller company that turned into the hot tub giant.
  • Murphy Bed — William Lawrence Murphy started this pull-down bed company.
  • Zamboni — Frank Zamboni used his name as the company name and that stuck for the term most people use for an ice resurfacing machine.
  • Dumpster — Built by the Dempster Brothers, Inc. of Knoxville, they named their product the Dempster Dumpster and “Dumpster” stuck.
  • Stetson — This hat was named after John B. Stetson who created a rugged hat for himself .

I haven’t had time to check into how important first-mover advantage is to building a colloquial/genericized brand. Perhaps you want to take a crack at that!

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