If there is one thing that is true about consumers today, you have less that ever to resonate and engage before losing their attention.
The name of your new business needs to be carefully considered with exactly this view and must relate to your target market. Of course, their is way more to a businesses success than just the name, as the name is a fundamental but small part of what makes a brand successful.
Some of the questions I’d ask myself about my chosen name would include:
1. Does it have a direct meaning
Don’t assume that the dictionary definition of a word, is the only meaning of a word as often it can mean something different in local dialect or among people with niche interests. Another faux pas people make all too often is going with their name as the brand with considering it’s meaning. Apparently there is a solicitors in the West Midlands called Crooke, Swindell & Fraude!
2. Does it sound like something else
Like the image used in the post header, Cake Spade have purposely gone for an association to Kate Spade a luxury handbag maker in New York. Now this seems to be a concious decision to directly position themselves as a quality, artisan and aspirational cake shop for the type of customer that would know about Kate Spade, so not allways a negative.
3. Is it easy to spell and pronounce
A lot of customer enagagement is on digital platforms these days so it’s important to ensure your brand can be easily found and when users type your url or search the app store, there are no issues with spelling the business name. Equally if your business still does a lot of work over the phone the pronounciation of the name is important for building the brand and recognition.
4. Think about the application
A business name in theory and on paper can seem to make total sense but also make sure the roll out of your business name across all creative channels ar eexplored. As an example there is a pen shop called Pen Island, great. They sell pens. But the url is penisland.net now you have no idea what you’re going to see when you come across that website!
These are very top level and actually pretty locigal, when infact there are many more intricate things to consider, like international language, shapes of the letters and sounds in the words that can make a brand more friendly or aggressive.
… Maybe we’ll go in to that more in another post!