Business, economic development - the unofficial Chamber of Commerce

Product naming is a key aspect of branding. The name you ultimately choose will reflect who you are, your company’s personality and vision. But more importantly, it must unforgettably embody the promise of your product’s main benefit to your potential customers. It can dovetail generically with your competition, but ideally, it should stand out from the crowd. Where to begin? Here are some basic guidelines.

If the field’s too crowded, be unique

MSN Search, Netscape Search, AOL Search, they all stayed in the same category, so
you could play it safe and go with Stupendous Search or Super-Duper Search. This
works for a time, but as soon as the field gets too crowded, you’ll be lost in the
mush of sameness with ever diminishing name recognition. If you’re in it for the
long haul, better to break away from the crowd with a name like Google, Yahoo, or
even Dogpile (though I’m not a fan of going into the scat category just to be
unique). Even Kinkos—the founder’s nickname (he had kinky red hair in school)—is
different enough to be memorable.

Avoid tongue twisters

There’s a little part in all of us that hates to be embarrassed. When we ask for a
product or talk about it with friends, we want to sound literate and not fumble over
pronunciations. So be kind to your potential customers and avoid tongue twisters,
or any name that’s unusually long or foreign sounding. If you can’t find a single-
word name, don’t go over two or three syllables.

Alliteration can help with longer names

Okay, so the president of the company likes all the longer names on your list. You
can make them more memorable and/or easier to pronounce by using alliteration.
Consider Circuit City (originally, the incredibly bland, monosyllabic, Wards). Or
Downtown Disney, Or the most famous brand in the world, Coca Cola. All four
syllables, yet they roll off the tongue with surprising ease.

Avoid abbreviations

Abbreviations lack personality and communicate very little in terms of benefit or
brand character. Sure, IBM, MCI and ABC have big recognition and identity, but they
also spent years and millions in virtually all media to promote their image—using
images of people and situations that were warm and fuzzy. Even billionaire Bill
Gates chose Microsoft over MS (which has some undesirable connotations).

Convey an implied benefit

If you don’t have a lot of media dollars to spend on name recognition, try for a
name that conveys a benefit or describes content. Snapple started out with a name
that combined two of its original flavors: Spice N Apple. Silk—the soy-based milk
brand—combines soy and milk. Benefit-oriented names include EasyOff oven
cleaner, Miracle-Grow plant food, and Hearthwarmer (a fireplace insert).

Lost in Translation…or worse!

Most of us have heard the story of Chevrolet introducing their “Nova” in Spanish-
speaking countries. The car tanked because ‘nova’ means “doesn’t go.” Fiat found
they had to rename their “uno” in Finland, since “Uno” means garbage in Finnish.
Canadian products require labeling in both English and French, which is why on
some cookie boxes, the English phrase “without preservatives” has been
unintentionally translated into the French “sans preservatives,” which means
“without condoms.” ‘Nuff said.

Avoid fads

The shelf life of a faddish name is short and sweet. It rises to the stratosphere of
recognition then nosedives into obscurity faster than you can say, “radical,”
“tubular” or “outta sight.” Another problem with fads is they’re often limited to one
demographic or clique. In a market as broad and diverse as the U.S., it’s better to
be safe than sorry.

Protect your image

If you’re like most companies, you worked hard and spent some real money creating
the image of your company. So it only makes sense to protect your investment with
a product name that’s consistent with your existing brands and image. Rolls Royce
had to pull the name of its newest addition to the Silver Cloud line, which they
tentatively named the “Silver Mist,” since in German, “mist” means manure. So build
on what you have. A good example: Google’s entry into online shopping with
Froogle. Incidentally, if you’re wondering where “Google” came from, it’s a variation
on the math term googol, a huge number with endless zeros.

Don’t forget legal

Once you’ve settled on a few ideal prospective names, hire a good lawyer to make
sure they’re not already being used and not confusingly similar to someone else’s in
your industry.

Hopefully, this brief overview will help guide you through the subtleties of product
naming. Remember, try to be unique and benefit oriented without being confusing
or offensive. Avoid fads, abbreviations and tongue twisters. And, by all means,
protect your image.

About the Author

Alex Kecskes is a former ad agency Copy Chief who provides a full range of
copywriting services to agencies and Fortune 500 companies. He has created
effective
brand names and copy for brochures, mailers, multimedia, articles, newsletters, PR
and
web content. For samples and more information, please visit:
http://www.akcreativeworks.com

We talk about tax freedom day - the day of the year in which the ‘average’ person ceases to work for the British Government and starts to work for him or herself. Thanks to the ‘prudence’ and ‘financial management’ of our current party this has gone from 24th to 31st May since 1997. Most readers of this article are likely to be higher earners and higher total tax payers - as a percentage of income - despite ICFBA services to help reduce that burden.

But what are you paying because of the bondage to the brand phenomenon? Modern consumerism is brand brainwashed. Your boy wants the latest Nike trainers, your daughter just loves Next, your wife is addicted to John Lewis, you - despite all your professional objectivity, stick rigidly to Hewlett Packard. You come home - order a meal from Pizza Hut - and go off to shop at Tesco’s.

I don’t deprecate these organisations. They are meeting a need and maximising their return on capital in doing so. That is good business. But that need is that of the lemmings who

- buy an item because of its brand, when a lower cost one would give the same or better value.
- buy from a higher cost channel, where a lower priced one would give the same or better service at a lower price.
- buy a higher spec and therefore more expensive article than is needed for the job.

Look at the unnecessary costs you are paying for: the enormous publicity spending, the large company overheads and the optimisation of profits. Sometimes perceived ‘better’ is just more standardisation - same sized potatoes - or more packaging or more additives. Manufactured goods probably come from the same factories in China - not always supplied at a low cost - due to the ‘special demands’ of the ‘prestigious customer’. I could get controversial by citing the use of ‘fear, uncertainty and doubt - FUD’ to make you go for the ‘safer bet’ - “Using this cartridge could void your warranty” - note could - not would. Even more political, is the misuse of patents and other intellectual property to heighten the entry threshold to a market.

In business it may be worse. Most readers are executives/directors of small or medium businesses. You have that position in the market because you supply value. People trust you. You would not let your hard won customers down by shoddy goods or inferior service. You do not have the resources to conduct studies into consumer demand so you use your experience to guide you and price your wares at cost plus a reasonable return. What’s more you are battling against those mighty corporations who even relish the bureaucratic regulations which inhibit your development.

I was analysing the expenditure of a public agency on the top 50 business supplies - computer supplies (40%), copier and other paper (25%), filing products, stationery, janitorial supplies and even tea and coffee. I took the price that typically would be spent by buying branded product from a leading business supplies chain. I then priced the goods on unbranded - or unpromoted branded goods - of sound quality from smaller reputable channels. I saved over 25%. On a business supplies budget of £20,000 that is £5000.

That is £5000 on to the bottom line. ICFBA is working on a programme to reign back your ‘brand freedom day’.

© Daniel Roberts
danielroberts@icfba.biz daniel@incartek.com

Daniel Roberts – January 2006
Published in ICFBA Advance

About Incartek
Incartek specialises in the office products and computer consumables businesses identifying opportunities for you to grow your business and then supporting you in exploiting them. It is affiliated to the International Confederation for Business. Incartek has three patents (granted or pending) in the design of inkjet cartridges.

About Daniel Roberts
Dan Roberts is a well known figure in the European electronic supplies and peripheral products industries. As a consultant to it since 1987 he opened up distribution channels and provided strategic guidance to companies such as Kodak, Verbatim, Memorex, EMC2 ICI Imagedata , and various office products, remanufacturing and computer leasing companies.

Between 1996 and 2005 he suspended is consulting activities to direct Europe’s largest master distributor of compatible inkjet cartridges – The Container Club.

Prior to 1987 he was Director of Product Planning for Unisys, and Director of Planning for the international operations of Memorex. In all, he has over 30 years experience in aftermarket distribution.

If brands are about relationships, why not build a strong brand marriage?

I’m not suggesting you actually walk down the aisle with your customers. But maybe the time has come to look at brand relationships in a different way?

We all know that the best brands make strong emotional connections with their customers. Recent research suggests, however, that the best brands don’t stop there. Instead, they leverage those emotional connections to such an extent that their customers feel “married” to the brand.

In general, customers come to strong emotional connections with a brand in two ways. First, they personify the product (or the company) so that they have a relationship with it just like they would with a real person. They sometimes experience a full range of emotions when they interact with the brand, and occasionally even talk about the brand like they would a good friend. Apple Mac users fall into this group.

Second, customers can become part of a group that shares a common bond around the brand. Harley Davidson and BMW motorcycle customers fall into this group, as do the user groups of many software companies.

For most technologists and scientists, however, this emotional model of branding is just too warm and fuzzy, especially with products that mostly satisfy functional needs. Most technology companies find it very difficult to methodically and systematically build emotional engagements. They also find it challenging, if not impossible, to measure and monitor these emotional connections when they do occur.

As a result, when trying to build a strong brand marriage, many technology companies are left standing at the altar.

Engaged Customers

Thanks to some groundbreaking work conducted by the Gallup Organization around the topic of brand engagement, brand bachelorhood may soon become a thing of the past.

In their insightful book, Married to the Brand, Gallup draws on worldwide research and development efforts completed between 2000 and 2004 to define the emotional attachment necessary to bond a customer to a brand. More important, they illustrate the basic principles involved in creating the ultimate brand relationship — passion for the brand — and moving customers to the point where they feel that no other brand will do.

Fortunately for technology companies, the research doesn’t stop with luxury retail brands like BMW cars, Armani suits, or Louis Vitton handbags. It also includes those difficult to brand relationships between IT managers and their software providers or between physicians and pharmaceutical firms.

Highlights from the research include:

*There are crucial differences between a customer and an engaged customer. Don’t settle for merely gaining a customer. Instead, strive for customer engagement.

*What it takes to initially attract a first-time buyer is quite different from what it takes to convert that buyer into a fully engaged customer.

*It’s the total brand experience, and not just a few isolated elements, that determines the health of a brand marriage.

*It takes more than trust to build a long-term brand relationship. You must also have brand passion.

*Emotions are powerful, profitable and measurable.

*Every time a customer touches a company, the brand relationship can be enhanced. Or it can be diminished.

*Successful brand marriages can be achieved only by company-wide commitment and aligned, integrated efforts.

Why Customers Say “I Do”

The best of the Gallup research involves a series of questions that measure and monitor the strength of relationship that exists between a company or a brand and its customers. As part of its findings, Gallup discovered that strong responses to these questions are directly linked to increased market share, revenues, profits and customer retention — just the kind of research and validation that emotionless CFOs can sink their teeth into.

The questions fall into two basic categories. The first three questions measure customer satisfaction; the last eight measure the strength of the customer’s engagement with the brand.

On a 5-point scale from “extremely” (5) to “not at all” (1):

*Overall, how satisfied are you with [Brand]?

*How likely are you to continue to choose/repurchase/repeat (if needed) [Brand]?

*How likely are you to recommend [Brand] to a friend/associate?

On a 5-point scale from “Strongly Agree” (5) to “Strongly Disagree” (1):

*[Brand] is a name I can always trust.

*[Brand] always delivers on what they promise.

*[Brand] always treats me fairly.

*If a problem arises, I can always count on [Brand] to reach a fair and satisfactory resolution.

*I feel proud to be a [Brand] [customer/shopper/user/owner].

*[Brand] always treats me with respect.

*[Brand] is the perfect [company/product/brand/store] for people like me.

*I can’t imagine a world without [Brand].

According to the Gallup research, the answers to these questions indicate with remarkable accuracy whether your customers consider you a life-long partner or a one-night stand. More important, they point out areas where companies can take focused action to build the relationship and strengthen the brand.

The reality is that your customers are eager to tell you the state of your brand relationships. Moreover, they would love to help you make those relationships even better. Wedding bells can chime for your brand, but only if you ask the right questions, listen closely to what your customers are saying, and take appropriate action based on what you hear.

Get your free whitepaper: The 10 Biggest Technology Marketing Mistakes… and How to Avoid Them

Rod Whitson serves Townsend as President and Chief Brand Strategist. Townsend is expert at helping organizations with innovative products and services develop differentiated, compelling value propositions. Townsend is the largest integrated marketing agency in Southern California. Rod has personally led recent branding engagements with Intel, BAE Systems, Merck, DowPharma, Marsh & McLennan, and the University of California system. He has also worked with a host of successful and not so successful early stage technology and life sciences companies. Since Townsend’s founding in 1993, it has helped clients create market valuation in excess of $80 billion.

Visit Rod’s blog, Branding the Complex

© 2006 Rod Whitson - All Rights Reserved Worldwide

Do you have any idea how important your company logo is? Well you should. It appears on everything from your corporate identity system, brochures to your website, reaching customers, prospects, vendors and the press. In other words, your logo gets to everyone and as they say you only have one chance to make a first impression. Present yourself clearly and dynamically, and you’ll look like a professional, even if you are a small company.

We also recommend hiring a branding company to execute your logo. They can help you with positioning your company and creating the logo design. Here are some tips for effective logo design:

1. Your logo should reflect your company and it’s positioning. If your logo contains a symbol–often called an “icon”–it should relate to your industry, your name, and a defining characteristic of your company or a competitive advantage you offer.

What’s the overriding trait you want people to remember about your business? If it’s quick delivery, consider objects that connote speed, like wings or a clock. Consider an abstract symbol to convey a progressive approach–abstracts are a great choice for high-tech companies. Or maybe you simply want an object that represents the product or service you’re selling. Be clever, if you can, but not at the expense of being clear.

2. Avoid too much detail. Simple logos are recognized faster than complex ones. Strong lines and letters show up better than thin ones, and clean, simple logos reduce and enlarge much better than complicated ones.

But although your logo should be simple, it shouldn’t be simplistic. Good logos feature something unexpected or unique without being overdrawn. Look at the pros: McDonald’s, Nike, Prudential. Notice how their logos are simple yet compelling. Anyone who’s traveled by a McDonald’s with a hungry 4-year-old knows the power of a clean logo symbol.

3. Your logo should work well in black and white (one-color printing). If it doesn’t look good in black and white, it won’t look good at any color. Also keep in mind that printing costs for four-color logos are often greater than that for one-or two-color jobs.

4. Make sure your logo’s scalable. It should be aesthetically pleasing in both small and large sizes, in a variety of mediums. A good rule of thumb is the “business card/billboard rule”: Your logo should look good on both.

5. Your logo should be artistically balanced. The best way to explain this is that your logo should seem “balanced” to the eye–no one part should overpower the rest. Just as a painting would look odd if all the color and details were segregated in one corner, so do asymmetric logos. Color, line density and shape all affect a logo’s balance.

Many logo gurus insist your logo should be designed to last for up to 10 or 15 years. But I’ve yet to meet a clairvoyant when it comes to design trends. The best way to ensure logo longevity, in addition to the rules I’ve listed above, is to make sure you love your logo. Don’t ever settle for something half-baked.

And once you commit to your logo design, be sure you have it in all three of these essential file formats: EPS for printing, JPG and GIF for your website. Essentially, these file conversions render your logo as a single piece of art-so it’s no longer a symbol with a typeface. Which brings us to the most important rule in logo design. . .

Never, ever re-draw or alter your logo! If you want to animate it for your website, fine. But don’t change its essence. Reduce and enlarge it proportionally. And if you become tired of your logo, that’s good. Because that’s usually about the time it’s starting to make an impression on everyone else!

Scott White is President of Brand Identity Guru a leading Corporate Branding and Branding Research firm in Boston, MA.

Brand Identity Guru specializes in creating corporate and product brands that increase sales, market share, customer loyalty, and brand valuation.

This Article may be freely copied as long as it is not modified and this resource box accompanies the article, together with working hyperlinks.

Over the course of his 15-year branding career, Scott White has worked in a wide variety of industries: high-tech, manufacturing, computer hardware and software, telecommunications, banking, restaurants, fashion, healthcare, Internet, retail, and service businesses, as well as numerous non-profit organizations.

Brand Identity Guru clients include: Sun Life Financial, Coca Cola, HP, Sun, Nordstrom, American Federal Mortgage, Franklin Sports and many others, including numerous emerging growth companies.

Branding, branding, branding. About every fifth newsletter or article I see online or in business journals has some spin on branding. How important it is. How it is a piece of intellectual property that must be leveraged and protected. How it must be invested in–this assertion (surprise) is from branding consultants who invite you to hire them to “do” you. I am so tired of hearing about how lofty and complex branding is.

This is one of the sacred cows of marketing that needs to be defrocked, at least as far as service firms are concerned. Branding is important, yes. It is essential for a product firm, especially one selling consumer products, where even the way the item is packaged is part of the brand. And it is also important for a service firm, but in this case it can be greatly simplified.

As a provider of intangibles, you need to pay attention to “proxies,” those things that will convey the nature of your company’s services to your audiences in lieu of the services themselves. These proxies comprise your brand. Your company’s name, your logo, and your characteristic color palette all serve as proxies, and are all part of your brand. It is important to pay attention to these items and to take care in their creation. Once they are created, however, your activity is purely tactical: Make sure that they get used consistently and accurately in every audience-facing activity you take part in.

By far the most powerful and important proxy for your brand as a service firm, and one that must be regularly managed, is your “voice.” By this I mean the quality and style of the content of your collaterals–the words in your web site, your brochures, your e-mails, and any other communication that comes from your company.

Review your web site, your brochures, white papers, articles, newsletters, or whatever else you make available to your clients and prospects. Do you have a consistent voice in all of your marketing collaterals? If so, is it the right voice for your company? Does it convey the personality and values of the firm as well as the quality of its offerings?

If your voice really is accurate and represents your firm’s personality, here is another key question: Do your audiences hear you correctly? The way you will know the answer to this question is to gauge the response. This might be through inquiries from your site, leads generated at events, or the ease (or difficulty) you experience in moving through the sales cycle. Find ways to measure the effectiveness of your words so that you can see if you are being heard correctly.

If your voice is attracting the right leads and greasing the wheels for your sales, you’ve got it right. If, however, you are not getting the kind of response you seek from your target market, perhaps you aren’t talking right. Review the words that represent your firm, wherever they reside, and consider making some changes to the way you “speak.”

Your voice is the most powerful aspect of your service firm’s brand. Concentrate on getting it right, and then keeping it right, and your brand will be on the mark.

Trish Lambert, president of 4-R Marketing LLC (http://www.4rmarketing.com), is an experienced marketing consultant and creator of the 4-R Marketing Model™ for service businesses. Very much a “non-conformist” in the marketing world, Trish creates campaigns and programs that make sense for her clients, that can be clearly measured, and that produce the targeted results.

It’s the question that is on the minds of all our customers regardless
of what products or services we are offering. Potential customers
want to know what makes you so different and why should they
do business with you as opposed to one of your competitor’s.

Price at one time use to be a determining factor in the decision-making
process when it came to a purchase, now, that is not always the case. Our
customers are much more informed and savvy when it comes to buying and
while they want the BEST deal (I mean don’t we all?) it goes much deeper
than that. Many have said that they will spend the extra money on a purchase
because they are getting better care, better customer satisfaction…whatever
“better” is in their minds. “Care, Customer Satisfaction, Service” these are all
“values.” These values, when visible answer that important question

“Why should I do business with you?”

And these values are what sets you apart from your competition.

Ok, so this is all well said and good, now what do you do? What you need
to do is sit down and determine your values. If you have a downline then
hey many heads are better than one, set up a training night and brainstorm.
Make a list of ALL the values that set you apart from the competition and
the best place to start is why you got into the business or joined a specific
program in the first place. Chances are it’s those VALUES that will attract
people.

When I say list VALUES, I am not referring to the aspect of a specific
company having TUV dollars in assets and it is run by so and so. While
that shows company stability they are NOT values. People don’t care
how much in assets or who the person is - THEY WANT SOLUTIONS
TO THEIR PROBLEMS.

If you know what sets you apart from the competition then make it known
and visible. Don’t keep it a secret, include it in all your emailing campaigns,
put them up on your web site. These “values” can be known in the form of
testimonials which are an excellent way to set you apart from the competition
AND adds credibility because they were written by unbiased sources. Another
thing you could do is include “Your Story.” Explain your situation as to why
you got involved with a specific program or why you are in the business you
are in. People like to align themselves with “like-minded” people, they want
to know that “hey this guy is just like me!”

When you make your values visible you are really setting the “bar” for the
competition as well. They have to step up and exceed this bar now. They
have to work that much harder to keep and attract customers.
From a business perspective which would you rather be??

Make your values visible and make it obvious WHY a person should do
business with you as opposed to your competition.

Denise Ryder is a Marketing Coach writing from her home
office in Northern Ontario (Canada). Hey…are you a do-it
yourself marketer? Are you struggling a little? Need just a
little help??? Can you imagine how far your business could
grow with a Marketing Coach in your pocket??? Take a no
cost Test Drive TODAY!

http://www.profitspace.com/coach

Now that everyone has conformed to Living Your Brand on the Web, Part 1, it’s time to add a couple of tweaks that will further reinforce your brand.

Tweak #1: Your Signature File

A signature file is the simple text that, once activated is attached to your email automatically. It is the simplest and the most effective way to get a message across. Some are funny, some are serious and some consider another point of view, but in any case, any professional should use one and keep it updated.

Every signature file should include complete contact information so customers can contact you in their time. A signature can also include a tag line that reinforces your company’s brand. Consider the following two options:

Good Signature File:
Mark Wilson
President, Wilson Widgets
876-555-1234
mark@wilsonwidgets.com
www.wilsonwidgets.com

Better Signature File:
Mark Wilson
Wilson Widgets
“We’ve Got Your Widgets Right Here”
876-555-1234
888-555-9876 toll free
876-555-4321 fax
www.wilsonwidgets.com
Office Hours: M-F 7a-7p

One step further, allowing employees to add a personal message of their own, and it makes for fun reading.

Tweak #2: Subject Line Words of the Email

There are only 40-60 letters to grab the attention of a perspective reader, so choose wisely. Get to the point and give a synopsis of what the email is about. Short, clean and simple is the rule of thumb here. Don’t use words like Free, Fun, Pictures, Warning, or even non-alphanumeric’s (*%&#@) that could be confused with spam. Simply state the message and allow the reader to read on.

The purpose of this is to get as many eyes as possible on your company’s message and brand.

Glenn Geiger is the Director of Interactive Services for Pixallure Design LLC, http://www.pixallure.com. Glenn has worked in Web site design, development, systems administration and management since 1987, including work for DynCorp, Accent Software, GlobalKey, Inc., and Digital Equipment Corp.

This article may be freely distributed as long as the author’s bio is included with an active link to http://www.Pixallure.com.

Remember this passage from the movie, “Pulp Fiction”?

In the movie, Samuel L. Jackson told you it came from
the bible, Ezekiel 25:17, and it went like this:

“The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the
inequities of the selfish, and the tyranny of evil men.
Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and goodwill,
shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness
for he is truly his brother’s keeper… and the finder…
of lost children.

And I will strike down upon thee with great vengence and
f-u-u-r-rious anger, those who attempt to poison and destroy
my brothers, and you will know, my name is The Lord when I
lay my vengence upon thee.

Yeah!”

Immediately after reciting this passage, Jackson then proceeded
to violently unload several rounds of bullets into the person
he was talking to.

So you soon discovered, whenever Samuel L. Jackson recited
that passage, you knew he was getting ready to blow someone
away.

I guess you could say, that passage was his “brand”.

And while “branding” is definitely NOT the best way to go as
far as marketing goes, at least, if by “best” you mean,
“making you money”…

You won’t ever go wrong “branding” yourself, your guarantee,
or your processes, to give your marketing an edge.

In fact, if you get it right… it’ll give you…

A HUGE EDGE!

Over the last 6 months alone, I’ve “created” the following
people:

The PCO Millioniare… Mr. Math… and, most recently, The
Titan Of 100% Income Tax-Free Real Estate Deals.

And believe me, those identities are a lot more likely to
catch your reader’s eye and your prospect’s curiosity and
interest, than using your “real” identity.

Call me stupid, but those identities sound a lot more engaging
than Chet, Rick, and Dick.

Don’t they?

Plus, who’d you rather buy stuff from: A former teacher, or
Mr. Math?

Is there an amazing identity, process, or guarantee you’re
overlooking inside your business?

Think about it and let me know.

Now go sell something,

Craig Garber
http://www.KingOfCopy.com

P.S. Check out all the prior archives you’ve been
missing, right here at:
http://www.kingofcopy.com/tips/tiparchives.html

If you want to know how to consistently attract a steady stream of fresh new prospects, who are pre-qualified, eager, and excited about buying from you, then Craig Garber — recognized by his peers as America’s Top Direct-Response Copywriter — can show you exactly how to do this, step-by-step. Garber’s written winning promotions across a HUGE variety of industries and you can see them all for yourself on his website at http://www.kingofcopy.com