How a good brand name sets you up for growth
A good brand name (or company name) is one that is ready for the long haul. More importantly, a bad name can become quite an obstacle as the brand grows and builds a reputation. The point is that the longer you wait, the harder it is to change your name. So you have to know early on whether a brand name is future-ready. How can you tell?
Too often, start-up names are not ready for growth. Successful companies realize that on time because they are ambitious and forward-looking. They change their initial name at an early stage. Start-up “Backrub” became Google. “Caffè Crema” became Senseo. Let’s take a look at how they came to their original names, what was wrong with them, and how they corrected it.
So why did Google choose a name as quirky as "Backrub" to begin with? Because their innovative search engine was all about giving websites a little "massage" by analyzing and ranking them based on their backlinks. Just like a friendly backrub, these links acted as endorsements, helping determine a site's importance and relevance. Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the masterminds behind this idea, crafted the PageRank algorithm around this concept.
The story behind the name “Caffè Crema” was that in the early 2000s, times were different from today. Coffee lovers were craving something more sophisticated than instant (the norm), but easier than a barista's brew (exclusive). The name "Caffè Crema" would evoke the smooth, rich European coffee experience. It was a nod to the creamy layer of foam atop a perfect espresso, promising quality and a touch of indulgence.
You see what these names have in common? Both “Backrub” and “Caffè Crema” refer to the product and its revolutionary benefits. What’s wrong with that, you may wonder. Isn’t it an excellent idea to put the emphasis on the newly available benefits when you launch a game changer?
Yes it is, but it’s better not to use the brand name for that. Instead, use the slogan, tagline and campaigns to communicate product benefits. Here’s why you should be careful about the name.
Brand strength
Let’s look at Interbrand’s 100 Best Global Brands of 2023. How many of them express benefits, or even the product? These are the seven that do (benefits added in brackets): Instagram (direct), Intel (clever), YouTube (yours), Salesforce (power), PayPal (friendly), Pampers (caring), LinkedIn (connectedness). Four other top-100 names may not show a benefit, but they do state the product: Coca-Cola, Netflix, Mastercard and Volkswagen.
89 of the world's 100 most valuable brand names do not state product or benefits
So just think about it: 89 out of the world’s 100 most valuable brands have a name that does not make clear what the product is, let alone what its benefits are. Contrary to what you might expect, for a brand to become big, it’s not necessary to let the name communicate products or benefits.
Brand scope
In fact, the opposite is true. A name should leave room for future developments: new products and new benefits for future regions, languages and communities.
Amazon started out as an online book reseller. They expanded to cds and music and look where they are now. No wonder they grew bigger than CDnow could, whose name restricted them to selling cds. And PayPal, however huge they are, are restricted to easy payments, while payment provider Klarna is already branching out to broader retail services.
How good names allow for change and growth
This is why so many of the Top-100 brands have names that are not product oriented: they are open and distinctive enough to allow for change and growth. They do this often with names that are metaphors, like Apple, Red Bull, Samsung (‘three stars’) and Oracle. Sometimes written with a twist, like Amazon and Google. A large share of successful brands have personal names—either legendary (Nike, Tesla) or after the founder (Toyota, Disney).
Naming your unique ambition
These names are not only open and distinctive; they have an extra quality. They express the way in which the brand aspires to stand out. (You may argue about founder names but they do it if the founder is indeed very clear about how the brand is to stand out.)
So how does the name Google express its ambition to be unique? It has associations with two words. The most familiar is 'goggle'. A tool for making things visible that would otherwise remain unseen. The lesser known is 'googol', a number invented by a mathematician as an example of a quantity that seems graspable but is in reality beyond imagination. It is a one followed by a hundred zeros. That is more than there are atoms in the observable universe. Clearly, Google is the brand that is about getting useful insight from in fathomable amounts of information.
Senseo was the first in their market with a complete coffee ecosystem that let everyone experience full sensorial experience, individually, at home. Senseo conquered the world in a way that Caffè Crema would not have been able to.