Chapter 7. Brand Naming
One of the bigger mistakes I made when I struck out on my own happened in 2005 when I chose my first business name. For the duration of that year, I called myself New Dawn Graphics. In hindsight, it’s terrible, but I didn’t pluck it from thin air. I toiled, drew up a short list, asked friends and family and people I respected, and although New Dawn Graphics wasn’t a runaway favorite, it got more thumbs ups than any of the alternatives. So I ran with it.
Of course, the people I surveyed didn’t have to live with the name day in and day out. They were making a decision after just a few minutes of thinking (perhaps even seconds). I should have taken more responsibility and carried out more research and testing.
After some months, I became increasingly uncomfortable with my choice even though I’d already designed and paid for the printed stationery and website.
It was around one year before I changed my company name to David Airey. It was just me, after all, and I’ve not regretted the decision in the slightest.
Perth-based Bernadette Jiwa is a friend of mine who specializes in brand naming. In fact, she was the one who came up with the title for this book, Work For Money, Design For Love. I asked her to impart her expert advice to form the basis of this chapter. Thankfully, she obliged, because while trading under my personal name has helped me achieve more than I expected, it might not be the right move for you. Bernadette offers a wider perspective.
According to Bernadette, you have nine seconds to convince potential clients that you are The One, or at least to get them to take a second look. “The name you choose for your business is not just an asset you will own forever, it is one of the most important elements of your brand strategy,” she notes.
Everything begins with a name
We love a good story. We have done so since we were read to as kids, and it’s the same in business. Your story is what people will buy into, and your business name is the hook on which you hang your story and start the conversation with customers.
Bernadette goes on to say, “It’s more than the mechanism you give people to identify you. Your brand name is what makes that initial emotional connection with your customers, and when you earn their trust and loyalty, it’s the way they spread the news about you. A great brand name doesn’t just describe your business, it sets the stage, articulates your position, and conveys the unique personality of your brand.”
It might be tempting to head straight to a domain registrar to see what’s available, but before you do, here are the questions Bernadette recommends you ask yourself these questions.
What’s my mission?
What difference do I want to make with my business? To use myself as an example, my mission is to increase the percentage of projects I work on that are for nonprofit organizations, ensuring the work I produce is for companies with ethics that align with my own.
What’s my vision?
What are or will be the results and effects of my work and what my business does in the future? Again, using myself as an example: Those companies I work with will, as a result of my services, be better equipped to meet their own ethical objectives.
What are my core values?
What are the attitudes and beliefs that shape my business culture and the things my brand stands for? Personally, I have a strong desire to help companies that help and care for others. For instance, I’d much rather work alongside Marie Curie Cancer Care, a UK charity that provides palliative care to the terminally ill in their own homes, than I would an arms manufacturer, such as BAE Systems.
What is my unique value proposition?
Don’t just think about what you do, but also why you do it. Why will clients and customers want to do business with me?
Do I have an emotional selling point?
What’s the intangible that I am selling? Think feelings not facts. Do you offer a sense of connection, freedom, ego, belonging, or anything else that will appeal to customers?
What is the essence of my brand?
What is at the core of what I do, the image it portrays and the signals it sends? The essence of my brand is that it’s successful because I make it less about me and more about my clients—about the direction their companies are heading, and the success they will achieve.
Describe what you do and why you do it.
Aim to condense this into one line that communicates everything. This could eventually be a strapline if you choose to use one. For instance, I’m passionate about design, and I’m passionate about helping businesses I believe in to surpass their goals. I earn a living by combining those passions.
Paint a picture of your ideal client. Understand as much as you can about them, their goals, aspirations, and their personal and business priorities.
What’s my brand identity?
How does the consumer perceive my brand? What words might they use to describe it? What words would I want them to use?
What type of name do I want to consider?
Am I building a personal brand? Do I want an evocative, descriptive, invented, or other name?
Once you can answer all of these questions and have a short list of names, there are practicalities to consider.
Domain availability
There’s a certain weight attached to owning and operating with a .com domain extension, but if the .com name isn’t available, or if it’s already in use by a brand in a different industry, consider using your country extension .us, .co.uk, .in, and so on.
A .com extension is great, but it’s not the be-all and end-all. Take the United States-based company Instagram, for example. In 2012, the eight-person business was purchased by Facebook for $1B, and although the .com has since been acquired, it all started as instagr.am, using the .am domain extension (the country code for Armenia). So there’s scope to get creative, but it’s worth noting that .coms generally perform better in Google.com search queries. Whatever you choose, you need to carefully consider how your clients will find you.
Username availability across social media platforms
Using social media websites is a useful and inexpensive way to promote your brand and engage with prospective clients, so it makes sense to check the availability of your short-listed names on the most popular websites (Facebook and Twitter being the obvious two). You can quickly check availability of usernames across more than 100 social websites using namechk.com.
In chapter 11, there’s a great story about how London-based studio Mat Dolphin used social media and £20 to reach an audience of 374,000 people. It’s a useful lesson in how to make these tools work for you.
The legalities
Are there any registered trademarks that conflict with your proposed name? Research your country’s intellectual property database and also international databases. Here are a few links: www.uspto.gov, www.ipo.gov.uk, and www.ipaustralia.gov.au. If you’re going to use your personal name, this isn’t such an issue. It’s your name, after all: You don’t need to trademark it. But it might be a problem if your name is David Airey and you want to become an independent graphic designer.
How it sounds
Try the name on for size. Answer the phone with it. Introduce yourself at an imaginary pitch meeting. Test the name on a trusted focus group of peers (not necessarily for an, “Is this ‘The One’?” call, but more for, “Can you understand what I’m saying?” feedback). Can people pronounce it? Does it roll easily off the tongue?
Spelling
The easier it is for people to spell your brand name, the easier it will be for all forms of written or typed communication. My surname’s not the easiest, and I’m forever spelling out A- I- R- E- Y on the phone, but it’s short, and that helps.
You want a name that is also easily searchable. If your new brand is Rendezvous, for instance, you are going to lose a lot of potential customers simply because they don’t know how to spell your name.
Memorability
Google, Virgin, Pepsi—concise, distinctive names that are easy to remember. What about in the design profession? Pentagram, Chase, Landor. Notice how these names say absolutely nothing immediate about the product or service each company offers? The more generic names (like New Dawn Graphics) are too obvious, too cheap. There’s nothing remarkable about calling yourself Logo World. You want your brand name to help you stand out, not blend in. Look to the companies you want to emulate, and learn lessons from those you don’t.
Meaning
Does the name make an emotional connection with your audience or evoke a particular reaction? Have you also checked for cross-cultural meanings or urban dictionary definitions? The last thing you want is to be known as another unfortunately named brand, like SARS, the drink made by Golden Circle that shares its name with severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SEGA, the computer console that translates as wanker in Italian. It depends on your market, of course, but ramifications can easily go beyond your own personal dilemma: Remember that your name does become tied with that of clients. I recall when London’s Arsenal FC (who had their shirts sponsored by SEGA at the time) were playing a football match in Italy. For the trip they had to change the sponsor’s name to “Dreamcast” (a specific console produced by SEGA), for obvious reasons.
Feeling
How does the name make you feel? What are your instincts telling you? Looking back, when I chose New Dawn Graphics, I was thinking about the many thought-provoking dawns I’d witnessed on my Asian travels prior to setting up shop. But that emotional connection was just too personal, and I certainly couldn’t explain it to every new client. Instead, I was giving off a hippy vibe, not exactly ideal when I’m expecting corporate clients to be signing checks for thousands of pounds.
Positioning
Think about your brand beyond where it is today. There was absolutely no need for me to include “graphics” in my earlier name. Wolff Olins, Chermayeff & Geismar, venturethree, SomeOne—none of these leading firms tack “design” or “graphics” onto their names. They don’t need to. Neither do you. Consider future growth and the services you many want to offer down the line and avoid pigeonholing your business.
Also, think of the employees you might add to your team someday. Would they prefer to work for a company called Sonya Henderson, for example, or one called Moving Brands?
A few final thoughts...
Before we move on to the next chapter, where we look at designing your personal brand identity, I’ll leave you with these final words from my friend Bernadette.
“Names are not simply designed to identify, they really can take us in one direction or another. And so it goes with brand names, book titles, and product names, too. Companies know that names can make or break, that they build mystery, can form the basis of a movement or create cult status. That’s why Purple Cow is a more compelling title than Marketing for Today, and why Innocent was a genius way to begin the story of a juice and smoothie company.
“A great name can take you places a good name can’t. A truly great brand name makes room for a new story in people’s hearts and minds and can position a good product beyond its utility.
“So don’t just set out to name your company, set out to name the vision of what you want to see in the world.”