Category Archives: Business names

What’s In A Name

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Celebrities name their children after fruit, colors, numbers and even cities. (Or in the case of one psuedo-celebrity, Press. Yes, Press, for all the attention she allegedly did and will receive.) Us common-folk laugh at birth certificates filled with words more commonly used on spelling flash cards for first graders. But the stand-out-in-the-crowd naming mentality does not start or stop with preschoolers hounded by the paparazzi.

These superlative skills also flood companies and products. Want something in HD, you get your pick of makeup, movies or sunglasses. Then there’s extreme (or EXTREME or even X-TREME) for games, pop or memory cards. And the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show introduced ultra – ultrabooks, ultracomputers and ultratelevisions.

Add to all of this, 3-D and ultimate, and you get the Ultra Ultimate Extreme HD 3-D phone, television, computer, apple, car or pajama jeans (ok, that may be a little extreme).

But it begs the question – Does an avalanche of adjectives actually help sell a product by moving it into the sphere of talked-about-ness, or does it end up disappointing? Does a name in itself create credibility, or cause chaos in an already overwhelmed marketplace?

Maybe in the end it’s not what’s in a name, but what’s in the product itself. If we sell people on exaggerated expectations, we often end up with disappointed consumers. So if a name brings with it the showmanship of an Elton John costume, but also delivers, it does the consumer some good by delivering what it promises. But when we brand an object outside of its personality and label it for headlines and not accuracy, well, it ends up like a 72-day Kardashian wedding, a lot of talk and even more gifts that should be returned.

And then there’s the guy who named his sons Winner and Loser. Names hold power, but the product (or the person) holds even more. As for naming children, she may not be a celebrity outside of her own yard, but we named our pug Mayhem Awesome. Unfortunately, as our furniture proves, she did not over-hype her name.

- Jolene

“Adjective” Photo by Procsilas Moscas, “Mayhem” photo by Jolene Loetscher

A Boy Named Sue

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In my early years in advertising I worked for a company with a typical name for agencies of the day. Take the owners last names, put them on the door and presto! You’ve got an ad agency. The odd thing was, this is the same method accountants and lawyers use to name their firms. Consequently, when I would tell people where I worked they would often ask if I was a CPA or lawyer. Full disclosure, I used to wear a suit and tie everyday, and I’m sure that added to the confusion.

JMathis or ADwerks

So when I started my own shop the last thing I wanted to do was put my name on the door. I wanted to stand out from the crowd. I wanted to be the boy named Sue. Something different, something unique. ADwërks was born.

But it wasn’t long until a new agency popped up in town who decided on the name AdMark. Hmmm… out of 6 letters, 4 are the same. To make matters worse, the owner’s name was Jim. Confusion happened fairly quickly and we wound up in litigation defending our name. Needless to say, we won and ADwërks lives on.

Now I find myself pondering the problem of how to make an organization stand out from the crowd when they share parts of their name with more than a quarter of their competitors. Imagine your company is called Smith Jones Chocolates and when you list your competitors they include Smith Candies, Frank Jones Confections, Nancy Jones Chocolatier and more…different enough to avoid litigation, but similar enough to confuse customers.

In this case, most of the players have long histories and their markets didn’t overlap until long after the name was well seated and the companies had already grown to substantial size in their micro-markets. That’s not the case with the next example.

As frozen yogurt swings back into vogue the two big new players are CherryBerry and PinkBerry. I don’t know which came first, but it looks like one is trying to play on the goodwill of the other. Or vice versa. God help them if the next player in the field has “berry” in their name.

Puzzling isn’t it? How can you stand out in the crowd when the names are so similar. For your customers it must be a little like “Where’s Waldo” only in this case everyone is wearing a red and white striped hat and shirt.

My advice, when naming a product or business, make sure yours is unique, like that infamous boy named Sue. And like his father, fight to defend that name. What do you think?

- Jim Mathis