Choose your name wisely
There are all kinds of stories about products and services, ill-fated because of poorly chosen names... the Nova in Mexico ("no go") comes to mind.
Choosing a good product or service name demands a lot of foresight... business owners, brand managers, etc need to think years ahead (not just imagining pcatchy roduct launches). Case in point, my local auto repair shop. It's named "Mark's Japanese Auto". I drive a Honda, and bring it there for service - they do a great job. Cruising by the shop today, there was a big sign out front: "Now Servicing all European Cars!" Now, if I drove a BMW, VW, etc would I be inclined to bring it to a place with a name that screams Japanese Auto? In the Yellow Pages, White Pages, etc the business will be saddled by the "Japanese Auto" name and so it will be difficult to expand into the European car market.
Innovation demands new product and service names. The lesson here is to think about how your business will change as it grows. If you want to own a niche, then claim it with your name. If rather, you imagine future expansion, build some flexibility into your name.
Other examples of well-named or poorly-named businesses and products?
Choosing a good product or service name demands a lot of foresight... business owners, brand managers, etc need to think years ahead (not just imagining pcatchy roduct launches). Case in point, my local auto repair shop. It's named "Mark's Japanese Auto". I drive a Honda, and bring it there for service - they do a great job. Cruising by the shop today, there was a big sign out front: "Now Servicing all European Cars!" Now, if I drove a BMW, VW, etc would I be inclined to bring it to a place with a name that screams Japanese Auto? In the Yellow Pages, White Pages, etc the business will be saddled by the "Japanese Auto" name and so it will be difficult to expand into the European car market.
Innovation demands new product and service names. The lesson here is to think about how your business will change as it grows. If you want to own a niche, then claim it with your name. If rather, you imagine future expansion, build some flexibility into your name.
Other examples of well-named or poorly-named businesses and products?
posted by ROInnovation at 5:00 PM
5 Comments:
One example i can think of is the huge numbers of agencies in particular that just use combinations of initials as their names e.g. BBH, JWT, Y&R, S&H etc
This don't exactly help you understand what they do, stand for, believe in and so on.
Also now companies are increasingly struggling to be able to get domain names for their new brands, which adds another dificulty to the naming process.
Interestingly on the topic of Nova I came accross this:
http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/nova.asp
It would appear that this is an urban myth...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Sorry trying to get the link to work:
http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/nova.asp
Seth Godin also published the link to the snopes article on Nova:
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/7620305
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