Importance of Brand Names
What is a brand name?
A brand name is the ambassador of your business. A brand represents the product, service, and values of your business. A brand helps your target customers to distinguish your product or service from your competitors. So the brand name is more than a name.
According to Wikipedia,
“ A brand is a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s goods or service as distinct from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create and store value as brand equity for the object identified, to the benefit of the brand’s customers, its owners, and shareholders.”
In this article, you can learn why a brand name needs to be treated as much as you treat your product or service.
So why are Brand Names this much talked about?
Humans are very advanced when they sense something. They have five basic senses: touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste. The sensing organs sense every touch, sight, sound, smell, and taste around us and send that information to the brain and by advanced analytical methods, the brain identifies those signals and helps to understand and perceive things beyond the human body.
Perceiving things through the eyes is a more advanced process and one of the most important things. Humans are visual learners and they react according to their previous experiences. When humans are getting started to speak and understand a language, they do it by implicit association. Words and meanings that were described according to their personal experiences. The psychological effect of a word and a sound make a significant impact on the human mind. This effect can be used to make your company name a memorable brand in society.
1. Phonetic Symbolism
When Startups are challenged with the task of constructing brand names for new products, they undoubtedly face a complex and difficult situation. Most of the time people disagree with the fact that the brand’s name could make a huge impact on the success of a brand. In fact, one notable example is the Ford Edsel Failure. Edsel is an automobile marque that was released for the model years 1958 to 1960 by Ford Motor Company. The company spent $250 million on the Edsel project for its development, manufacturing, and marketing. But at the end of the project, it never gained popularity among contemporary American car buyers. The public considered the model to be unattractive, overpriced, and overhyped. Public view of the model made a huge impact on selling and the company lost most of the money invested in the project, Edsel. The name of the car ‘Edsel’ is cited as a major reason for product failure because the name Edsel made a negative impression on the car. This example shows how a name could impact the success of a brand. The human mind and the sound of the brand name have a direct association. It was scientifically described as Sound Symbolism.
Sound symbolism is a concept that refers to a non-arbitrary relation between sound and meaning which conveys a meaning apart from its actual definition. Further studies show that distinct sounds resulting from different combinations of letters are associated with the concepts such as size, weight, speed, and hardness. This concept can be used to communicate information about the product. For instance its size, speed, strength, weight, etc.
For example, front vowel sounds(such as the [i] vowel sound in pip), are related to the concepts such as smaller, brighter, or feeling of harder things. Front vowel sounds describe the tongue’s position toward the front mouth. Back vowel sounds in which the tongue is positioned toward the back of the mouth correspond to concepts like larger, slower, darker, and softer. Similarly, other sound patterns have associated with the different perceptions of the human mind.
2. Recognition
People tend to recognize others by their name likewise Brand names are also important to make a company disguising from each other. Recognition comes from the fact that how strong your brand name is promoted in the market. Recognition makes new customers easily. Brand recognition is mostly influential in emerging markets. Statistics show that more than two-thirds of market respondents (68%) say that they prefer to buy new products from brands they’re familiar with, compared with 57% in developed markets. In addition, more than one-fifth of developing-market respondents (22%) say they purchased a new product because it was from a brand they like, compared with 17% in developed markets.
3. Branding
Branding is a marketing practice in which a company creates a name, logo and selecting theme colors to identify a company and disguises from each other. Marketing is all about engaging with the customers. Marketing expertise uses different strategies to market a brand. If you fail to convince them about your brand, it will not get sold and expand in the competitive market. Good Product or service is the key, but that alone can’t help you until you get into the real business, marketing it. When it comes to marketing, brand name plays a major role. People remember the name, not the product or the service itself. They identify your brand by its name. Thus, finding the best brand name for your company is a crucial decision to be made.
4. Reputation
Reputation is created with the fact that how strongly you have branded your product or service. Your brand is what people say about your company and the perception that customers have of your business. Reputation leads to more advantages other than recognition.
When an employee works for a well branded company they would be more satisfied with their job and have a higher degree of pride in the work they are doing in the company. This will create a more positive advantage on your company much more than you think. Working in a reputable company makes workers more satisfied with their work and it makes them work enjoyable and fulfilling.
5. Communication
Communication with the outside attracts new potential customers to your business. This communication starts with the name of a company. People tend to talk about your company by using its name. Your company vision can also be communicated through the Brand name. Businesses may need a website if you wish or not, since the world has been accustomed to do business through the internet. For that it will require a domain name which is essentially your web address on the internet. It can be similar to your brand name or not. Unfortunately, if both are not identical, no options left rather than changing it. Here are the most important things you should know before choosing a domain
6. Protect your brand name
It’s important to protect your brand name to the appropriate degree. If you choose a name that violates another company’s trademark, you could face a legal problem and will end up receiving a cease-and-desist letter. Consequences would be worse if you have to face the court or change the name after years of use. By protecting your brand name, you gain the ability to prevent future competitors from using it. See more on step-by-step guide for Trademark.
7. Choosing a brand name
Brand name selection is an important step for marketers since good brand names can enhance memorability, create favorable images, and increase preference for products, and they are an important component in building brand equity.
Choosing a brand name is not a hard thing, but there would be a small chance to find an effective name. There are some methods to find good brand names. But There is no hard and fast rules which companies follow to choose a brand name. To get an effective brand name knowing the universal brand name qualities will be very helpful.
Tips to shape your brand name
- Simplicity
Almost all the successful companies in the business industry have a very simple and attractive business name with them. Simplicity is the most important factor to the way of success. Make your business name short and with an ideal character count of 4,5 or 6 and also check how easily it can be spelled and pronounced. You can check the simplicity of your brand name with the help of a vocabulary score. A brand name with a high vocabulary score can be identified as a simple brand name.
- Memorability
Memorability is a must for a successful brand name. A company has no existence in the business industry without a memorable brand name. Choose a brand name that can be easily memorized at first glance. The phonological loop values define how easily a brand name will stick into the human brain.
- Meaningfulness
95% of successful companies in the world have a meaning behind their brand name. It may come from an old ancient world, a creative word made out of a phrase, a foreign meaningful word, etc. Choose a brand name that has a meaning to be creative and unique.
- Less Character Count
This is also a very important quality to consider in creating a successful brand name. The length of the brand name affects the customers’ capacity of memorizing your brand name. Researchers have found that customers are more likely to engage with short brand names. Lengthy brand names are hard to remember and customers do not like to engage with lengthy brand names because of that. The ideal character count of the brand name is 4 to 6 characters. Consider the top brand names in the world, most of them are of 4 to 6 characters. So consider the length too.
- Easy To Pronounce
This is very important. When selecting a brand name for your company or business, make sure your brand name is easy for anyone to pronounce or read for the first time. Otherwise, it becomes difficult for some (customers) to communicate your brand name. And on the other hand, if your brand name is difficult to pronounce, people tend to forget it easily. Consider what makes an easily pronounceable brand name, for example, use simple pronunciation patterns and less character count in your brand name.
- Negative Connotation
When you’re naming your startup make sure that the name you are choosing is universal. Now you might start small but later when you get an opportunity to expand your brand into other countries, states, or cities having a negative meaning in the brand name will affect you a lot. The most successful “7Up” company failed with their brand name because when they tried to expand the brand “7up” in Shanghai, China, they found that the brand name 7Up means “death through drinking” from their language. So make sure to choose a brand name that will suit you universally.
- Human Psychology
Most people have no idea how a brand name will create an impact on the human brain or human psychology. Once a brand name enters the human brain it will bounce around in an electrical memory for about five seconds. We called this the audio buffering system or the phonological loop. Those brand names which bounce for more than five seconds can be memorized soon by the human brain. So when choosing a brand name make sure that the phonological loop is high.
- Should Be Universal
The brand name you choose should be universal. Almost all the parts in the world should easily remember your brand name at once and there should not be any negative meaning with your brand name in every language.