Subconsciously, we are surrounded by brand names everywhere we go. From the daily routine of getting up to brush your teeth to deciding where to go for lunch, and whether to purchase a bag of Twisties or Mr Potato to munch on. It is inevitable – you are surrounded by the brands of toothbrush and toothpaste, restaurants and snacks.
Brand name is an element of a brand which helps the customers to identify and differentiate one product from another.
It is like meeting a group of guys at a dinner party. Unless they introduce their names to you (Adam, Chu Leong and Kumar), you would be clueless of who they are, and who try to distinguish each other based on their looks. And once you know each of their names, you can to identify each of each individual and who does what for a living.
For any company, a brand name should be carefully chosen, as it would be what the public will be calling the company from there forth. It should also captures the key theme of a product in an efficient and economical manner.
Some brand names can be based on places (Texas Chicken, Malaysian Airlines), animals (Puma, Ayamas, Ayam Brand), and people (Jimmy Choo, Alain Delon).
Sometimes, the brand name should be one which can be translated into other languages. Some unfortunately, fall short on this category and got lost poorly translated into other language, like Nokia’s Lumia is a slang for prostitute in Spanish, or Iran’s detergent brand Barf (although translated into English means ‘snow’) might leave some with a bad taste in the mouth, pun unintended.
So, how does one start off with choosing a brand name which would be successful one day? In Steve Jobs’ biography, Jobs told author Walter Isaacson he was on ‘one of (his) fruitarian diets’ and had just come back from an apple farm, and thought the name sounded “fun, spirited and not intimidating”. Hence, the name Apple came to be established, and known today as among the top Smartphone and gadget companies in the world.
Brand name is crucial so that people would know how to associate and identify the product in the pool of other brands and products out there.