What’s In A Name?

Porsche, Porscchhhhhe… shhhhhh… that’s how quiet this car is…
Land Rover. It doesn’t just drive, it roves; over roads, land, terrain, sand, gravel, rocks, boulders, and anything and everything else that gets in between it and its destination.

What’s in a name? The name, perhaps a product’s most important asset, shapes consumers’ perception. Through its phonetics, onomatopoeia, connotations, denotations, and even its length, a name is capable of sculpting the product from cold, hard, grey clay.

It’s almost like a word association game, in that the name itself evokes certain emotions or tints the perception. Axe has a sharp, almost stinging smell; a Canon shoots heavy metal balls and photos. Now, whether these associations were carefully planned or purely coincidental… You decide.

John Caddell’s blog mentioned a couple of pointers that make a great name, and while I agree with all of them, there are two that I find particularly important:

1) Easy to say.

The brand should almost flow off the tip of the tongue. You want people to throw your product name around in conversation as liberally as possible, without having to pause and repeat it several times in different accentuations when a blank look comes up on the other person’s face. Without a sayable name, how can word-of-mouth marketing to occur? On that note, two cars come to mind, Altima and Peugeot. I’ve always had difficulty saying that (I often find myself repeating the name several times to make sure it sounds correct as possible), and in the latter case, I actually had to pause and think while typing it.

Foreign brands are particularly adroit at befuzzling the consumer. Indeed, Givenchy has had my head spinning for years now. That being said, sometimes it is actually beneficial to have a foreign name like that, for it endows exoticness through its nationalism.  Sennheiser; only the highest German sound-quality standards! Another reason that brands may seek hieroglyphic names is that it conveys exclusivity or superiority – I can pronounce it, thus I’m fit to wear the name.

2) Easy to remember.

“I really recommend that restaurant down the street, I don’t remember what it’s called… The food tastes amazing though!” Being short or even monosyllabic sometimes helps here. The whole point is that customers who tried it once know exactly what it’s called so they can find it again. Stick it in the buyer’s retrieval set and staple it down, even if the buyer doesn’t realize it! This aspect is very intimately related to the first point mentioned above; if it’s easy to say, chance are it’s easy to pronounce. The best example of this hard-to-remember name is… Well I can’t quite think of one right now.

One third point that I find particularly effective is the ability of the product to penetrate everyday language. Google this; Wiki that; grab me a Kleenex; Xerox it; let’s have a Coke; my head hurts, I need to take a Tylenol. As you can see in these examples, these names tend to fall into two categories: the first is the name that has become synonymous with the product itself, like Kleenex. The second category includes the names that can be used as a verb: Google it.