Any business devotes a considerable amount of time into thinking of a brand name and try to keep it as unique and catchy as possible. Brand name is an important part of brand identity. It conveys a lot about your brand, the products you offer, brand personality and brand values. Brand name is that which sticks for life and also creates a unique differentiation and brand recall for you in consumers mind.
A good brand name should be timeless, easy to remember, strike a liking with the consumers and also facilitate brand extension in future. A poorly chosen brand name can become limiting should you choose to extend your product portfolio and diversity in future.
Brand names broadly can be classified into 7 categories –
- Names of the founders: Many brands use the names of its founders and its brand identity becomes synonymous with the personality of that person. These can be both uplifting when the business is young and new but limiting when the business is old and ripe. Example – Disney, Cadbury, Ralph Lauren, Ben & Jerry’s, Tom Ford
- Descriptive names: These are the names which are descriptive of the nature of the business. These are to the point, have less creativity and become limiting if the company chooses to diversity. Example – MailChimp, General Motors,
- Descriptive combination names: This is an extension to the above category of descriptive names, these names are combination of two or more self explanatory words. Example: FaceBook, Ray-Ban, Goodreads, Cafe coffee day
- Metaphor names: These names take the names of mythological characters, colours, geographical places, animals etc. This category of names have a lot of room for creativity. If chosen right, the brand name will personify the brand values and offerings. Most of the marketing campaigns for these brands will see the metaphorical element thus chosen and helps create a differentiation and brand recall. Example: Nike, Tesla, Amazon, Oracle, Puma, Kingfisher
- Fabricated names: These are purely made up names and meaning is given to them on the basis of marketing and communication efforts. Example: Kodak, Xerox, Dyson
- Acronym names: These are group of alphabets, which may or may not have a meaning. If they do have a full name behind them branding activities do not use them or they are long forgotten. Example – IBM, FCUK, UPS, IKEA, H&M, AT&T, M&Ms, BMW
- Geographical names: These names generally have a geographical location attached to them Example: India bulls, California Pizza Kitchen
While choosing a brand name, one must remember the product offering, company goals for future, brand values they wish to offer and obviously be creative enough. Today we live in the world where names and categorical explanations are given by humans and it does not take long to break the stereotypes!
