Brand Names

Learning Goal: Create a brand name.

What you call a new venture can very well turn out to be one of the most important decisions you will make in the early days of a company. The business name will dictate which Web domain you can register, your trademark, and how people identify what you do. The following are generic principles you should always consider:

1. You have two options: Name it something relevant or something extremely catchy

Most smart entrepreneurs go with the straightforward option and name the business something relevant to their industry or goal. Charity:water is a great example. It doesn't get more straightforward than that. Often times, this will give you the easiest and most fireproof way to brand your business: Just utter its name.

Often times, however, companies with bigger budgets will make up a cool-sounding nonword that's extremely catchy. Squidoo and Piperlime are examples of that. I personally like this option better. It's more of an uphill climb to brand your company, but worth it when you get there as consumers appreciate being the creativity and often have a great connection with these names.

2. Follow the KISS rule: Keep it short & simple

Ten characters or fewer is ideal for a company name. You want people to be able to retain the name and concept after just a glance.

800.work started out as the Department of Business and Communications. 800.work is 7 characters long by the way. The first name change idea was centered around the idea of school, The WCA School of Business and Communications. Huh? That is horrible.

3. Easily translated into a big, eye-catching sign

Assuming the risk of being generic or boring with your logo, you may want to think closely about the repercussions of choosing a font that may be hard to incorporate into a big LED sign--a sign that one day will be at the forefront of your expanding locations. Our original logo had a cursive and thin font, and we had great difficulty finding a sign company that wouldn't butcher the aesthetic feel of it. We finally decided it would be in our best interest to change the font to one that could be reproduced more easily, lending itself to LED lighting (or any other type of lit sign) in the future.

Additional Considerations

Now that we have outlined a clear set of parameters for what your name must consider, let's talk the details of what you can consider. Choose from 1 or 3 of the following 6 ideas and make your name fit the parameters of a quality name. But remember from our reading, its not the name that makes a company but the people running it.

1. Watch out for Sound-alikes

Tarek Pertew, the co-founder of Wakefield (which provides info about great places to work), says to avoid a name that has too many alternate spellings. For example, you might want to call your new start-up Phaser, but he says too many people will think it is Fazer or Faser. They will type that domain into a browser and find the wrong brand.

2. Wait for the Lightbulb Moment

To create BloomThink, the name of his social media firm, Billy Cripe grabbed blank sheets of paper and had family members write down interesting words. Eventually, his daughter put "bloom" and "think" together. Everyone at the table new it was the right name. "Start-ups should take some time saying the words out loud because they're going to be saying it a lot: on the phone, in face-to-face meetings, in presentations. You want your words to easily translate to the keyboard for accuracy and ease," he says.



3. Let your name tell a story.

Pertew says it is not always necessary for your company name to tell a story. Yet, it can help with branding and generate buzz. One example: the eyewear company Warby Parker is named after two characters from a long-lost Jack Kerouac journal. Pertew's company name is also a conversation starter: Wakefield is named after a character in a Tom Swift novel series from the 1900s that was inventive and prescient.

Lesson Information

Presentation

BrandNames.pdf

Additional Reading

Student Activity

    • Determine the branding components for the brand you are developing, specifically the name