Find entries by tag
- 21st century business (14)
- action (6)
- aspiration (10)
- business (8)
- business planning (21)
- business success (13)
- changing lives (10)
- charity (76)
- charity governance code (2)
- cic (5)
- CIO (2)
- coaching (16)
- collaboration (21)
- communication (3)
- community (1)
- community interest company (4)
- community shares (2)
- contract readiness (3)
- corporate culture (10)
- corporate personality (2)
- creative think tank (7)
- csr (17)
- decision making (4)
- entrepreneur (46)
- environment (2)
- ethical audit (1)
- exit strategies (3)
- family business (2)
- feasibility study (6)
- focus on action (4)
- Franchising (2)
- funding and investment (5)
- fundraising (1)
- goal setting (33)
- goals (2)
- governance (4)
- growth (8)
- i factor (1)
- ideas (2)
- income (1)
- innovation (18)
- inspiration (42)
- investment (4)
- leadership (8)
- local authority (9)
- marketing (45)
- mihm (3)
- new normal (1)
- niche (8)
- niche market (4)
- pandemic (2)
- passion (1)
- pricing (2)
- profit (2)
- public sector (6)
- relationships (2)
- responsible organisation charter (21)
- rethinking parks (1)
- ROC (3)
- rotherham (1)
- rural diversification (1)
- sales (7)
- sales training (1)
- sellability (1)
- sme (1)
- socent (13)
- social enterprise (40)
- social entrepreneur (2)
- social impact (6)
- social investment (1)
- solopreneur (1)
- staff engagement (6)
- stakeholders (2)
- strategic development (23)
- strategy (16)
- success (10)
- sustainable profit (4)
- team (1)
- team working (3)
- tendering (1)
- theory of change (1)
- time management (4)
- tools (12)
- travel (3)
- trust (1)
- trustees (2)
- values (35)
- vision (10)
- volunteering (4)
- winning by being good (6)
Posted by Sarah Brown on 30 Mar '17
Did you take more care naming your baby than naming your business?
I’m excited, next week we will be working with a client running a Creative Think Tank session to identify a new name for his business. It's part of our set of innovation services we offer to help people with their strategy and niche.
Naming is such a critical part of a business and the products and services you sell yet it scares me that many people use emotion rather than logic in their naming.
There is lots of evidence that simple names which are easy to spell , say and remember do better. A random selection of companies trading shares on the New York Stock Exchange found that easier to pronounce names outperformed those with difficult to pronounce names particularly when first launched with an incredible 3 fold difference in the price rise achieved by pronounceable names.
I met a firm the other day which seemed to be full of really good people but I couldn’t pronounce the name and now can’t remember it nor could I even attempt to spell it to find it on Google.
I ran the creative session that named the Delta card for Barclays many years ago – simple easy and with no connotations about money.
If you want a powerful name and it includes existing words it’s important to think about if the words are seen as positive or negative which can change depending on the context and also over time as new generations use language in a different way. Most importantly the name needs to convey the values and personality of the company or product.
A brand is more than a name, it is about the whole experience of dealing with a company but get a name that jars and you will have to work harder to be successful.
Other blogs you may find interesting