During one of our internal discussions, we were discussing on the reasons why the sales for certain services were this while other were that. During the discussion the possibility of the name for the service or product being the reason for the slower growth was pointed out.
The logic was that the name doesn't connect to it's target market and don't ring a bell.
"Sure", I thought. The name doesn't ring a bell. The root cause of that is obviously the service or product don't have a good market share yet, and no active marketing was carried out the promote the service or product.
I believe Naming is important, but only up until so. The more important aspect of the success of a product or a service is, after all, the product or the service itself.
No matter how horrible your naming is, if the product is superb and does it's job well to satisfy it's customer's need, you might have a chance.
But if you have a great name, but the product sucks, well, you won't last long, since no one want's to use a product that doesn't work. Unless it's Windows.
Apple is a bad name. It's a name of a fruit, and might have been Pear or Durian or Rambutan or even Manggis. But as we all know, Apple Inc. is the company that created iPod and to a certain extent defined the modern desktop experience. They had other products as well, like the Lisa and Macintosh, which by the way, might as well be the names of the couple living two blocks down the road.
During these kinds of discussions, I try to stay focus on the product and on the customer. Are we connecting the two? Are we satisfying the customer? Are we bringing a specific solution to a specific problem? These are the questions we should first figure out the answers to, before we wonder of at thinking of a name or brand change.
On the other hand obviously locality counts to a certain extent on naming. In Japan it's important to have a name thet has around 4 syllables, or capable of being shortened into one, i.e ミスド 、ドンキー 、ヤフー or ミクシィ。Due to the trend of the Japanese that will somehow shorten a name to around 4 syllables or less, it will allow your brand to be easily remembered and have a shot at being a verb, i.e ミクシィしてる？ Even in Japan, it's also obvious to avoid using offensive words; You wouldn't want to name your company or product "株式会社詐欺万歳" for example.
As a bonus, here is a link to a name generator in case you're thinking starting your own Web 2.0 Service: Web 2.0 Name Generator
I personally like the Chinese way of naming; There is a shopping complex in Kuala Lumpur called "Sungei Wang Plaza" which literally translates to "The Money River Plaza". If you setup shop in the Plaza, you'll be in the river which flows money. The Chinese has a particular way of naming; See how they named the rooms and halls in the Forbidden City in Beijing.
It'll be interesting to find a so-called Web 2.0 company that has a name like "The Golden Horses".
The Two Kinds of Moderate
1 year ago
