Mr. Javed

Sales & Marketing

A Five Star Naming Standard.... a Quick Test

By Naseem Javed, Founder, ABC Namebank International

Corporations must know the hidden the powers of their names. Each business name has several components often invisible to marketing executives and these characteristics and split personalities determine the success or failure of a name. To measure the effectiveness of a name or to see how much extra luggage a name is burdened with, following are the guidelines for a general check up.

Today, good corporate identities skate at bullet speed on this flat new earth, a place without borders or passports, time zones or delays. Under the new rules the global name driven economy is humming along with help of the now-ubiquitous Internet.

The right name works likes a key, which can open the doors of this net kingdom. Indeed, for marketers, who must learn to play on this one flat earth, the competitive fog is so thick that without the right key the name identity simply doomed. The '60s were for burning flags and bras - now is the time to burn most of the old marketing and branding books. This name rating provides a wake-up call for corporations to reposition, recharge, and restart the main engines.

So are all the great names gone? Only a myth? For a time, North American corporations were convinced that star quality names were all taken and they had to accept whatever weird, silly names could be delivered by agencies, who, despite delivering award-winning logos and commercials, seriously failed in naming. A false myth was created to cover the lack of skills and naming was farmed out to skateboarding freelancers for "a-buck-a-name." Five hundred bucks got you 500 names. Where else would names like "Oinga or Boinga" come from? What ever happened to PurpleFrog or PinkRhino?

It is a false rumor that all good names have been taken. But one must understand what makes a good name today.

This is all about the structure of name and its impact and not about its type font or logo. Equally important is visibility in global e-commerce, a micro-multinational formation in a maze of countries and cultures. A star quality name not only has instant accessibility and quick search-ability on the 'Net, but must be distinct and memorable to an overly strained populace typing with tired fingers. The old-fashioned gigantic logos and splashing colors and stripes have nothing to do with this. No delays, no barriers, just access.

No matter what a name is used for, either a corporation or conglomerate, consumer brand, trust, union, bank, government agency or a Web portal, it is still a name to a customer, and it must achieve its goal. All names are seeking attention from investors, shareholders or customers, while trying to prove their point of view. Good names have direct impact on corporate persona and positively influence customers, shareholders, media and public opinion at large.

So, how does a name measure up?** **** **

As the rating below will reveal, many corporate names on the list may be in serious need of re-evaluation for their relative positioning on the national scene and also the emerging global markets. The prevalence of geographic or descriptive names reveals corporations stuck in the last century; names formed of initials or pure dictionary words can be impossible to work with in daily commerce and on the 'Net; and questions are raised by some of the more casual names which may not command the sobriety and trustworthiness now demanded by investors and customers due to recent fiascos. Corporations must ensure that they are appealing to a 'Net savvy, globally interactive audience. It's time to explore the powers of healthy names and the new laws of marketing.

A Five-Star Standard for Naming...A Quick Test

Healthy Names: When a name is fit to play the game, it can join the race and sprint to win.

Easy to Use: Is the name very easy to understand? Spell, type, talk about or refer to? This name is linguistically acceptable as a transparent word-mark in the global marketplace. Examples: SONY, Microsoft. TELUS

Unique and powerful: Is the name is developed with a unique alpha-structure, as a one of a kind word-mark in the world? Powerful, yet very friendly, this name works like a kind of magic, while emulating sobriety. Examples: INTEL Panasonic, 3M.

Highly Relevant: Does the name fits the personality and the type of business it's in, and quickly conveys the marketing objectives? Is it trustworthy and respectful, and fits like a glove? Examples: PlayStation, DirtDevil, HeliJet, Technovision, as Sony is to sound and TELUS to telecommunications.

Identical dot-com: Is there a 100% identical dot-com to go with the name? Are there other characters, words, dashes or initials inserted into a URL causing major distraction? Dot-com is the only gold standard. Les than 5% have identical dotcom the rest have easily forgettable suffixes or extra words inserted in the URLs.

Ownership: Is the name globally trademarked and does it have a full intellectual property plan to stay on course as a global word-mark? Sometimes a single country registration is not enough. Less than 5% corporations have global protection the rest shy away from dozens of countries all because of the name.

These five critical steps are absolutely necessary for a name to pass this acid test of a 5 Star Standard, otherwise a name will never perform or win the race. Unhealthy names will have a very hard time building any significant Corporate Image and sooner or later will be changed. Injured Names will seriously hurt the business growth and sometimes may even kill the project, first.

Injured Names: When a name appears to be injured. It can stay in the race but may not win.

Diluted: Are there far too many identical or similar names in the marketplace? Can this name easily get lost in e-commerce, trade directories or in the huge global marketplace? Like Allied, Quantum, Dynamic, Prism, Axsis, Nexis etc.

Confusing: Is money being spent correcting various perceptions of the name in the marketplace? Are there constant struggles with the positioning of the image? Did the business style changed but not the name? Is the name selling distilled water or computers or both?

Descriptive: Is the name simply a description of what the company does? Does it resemble words on a string rather than a properly formatted name? Was it a very long name that got initialized and is now a strange acronym? Are these only dictionary words? Why not share the profits too as dictionary words belong to the general public. Examples: North Western Pipeline Company, or NWPC or NOWEPICO.

Geographic: Was the name borrowed from the atlas? Does the name ties to a locale while the national and global opportunities are seriously missed? Business is only global. E-commerce has no nationalities or passports. Worldwide, geographic names are very cumbersome. Like, Pacific Northern, Pacific Rim, East this and West that.

Surnames: How is the founder doing? Hopefully doing great? Unless legendary and dead, the use of a founder's surname is always a high risk when it comes to media exposure as it ties the company to a single personality and his or her sometimes-exotic behaviors. Globally, surnames are being changed at a very fast rate.** **

Life Support Names: When names have too many obvious problems, they struggle and wait to be changed and eventually die.

Spelling Problems: Do customers spell this name four different ways? Is it also splitting the customer traffic in four different directions? Is it resulting in a quarter of your total profits? Is the name caught in translation issues, sending strange messages to our highly cosmopolitan societies, and scaring potential customers away? Axprts, InConeXXus.

Split Personalities: Is this name transmitting different and weird personalities to different groups at different times? Is it costing a lot of extra money to maintain its course? Examples: GoldShares - are they stockbrokers, gamblers, jewelers or miners? SoftStreams - a river? A romantic Web site? Piped music, software development? Or what? ** **

Structural Issues: Is it a too-short alphanumeric combination or a footling name? Customers may be clicking onto the next page with big sales missed in seconds. Were dingbat symbols inserted or were weird formations created? Is this creative overkill hurting the business? Like @Home, MBANX, ING, BENQ, NZNX, AUNX.

No Dot-com: This name lacks an identical dot-com. Instead, we see a twisted URL with excessive luggage or a series of forgettable weird suffixes such as dot-biz, dot-net, dot-info and so on. Some corporations have their identical dot-com redirected to a dot-ca site to appear domestic. This is practiced by a lot of multinationals. However, it works best when there is an original dot-com in the first place.

No Proper Trademark: No proper trademarks? Why join the race? No matter how big the celebrations for the name launch, the real parties happen at the law firms who later enjoy the legal entanglements in perpetuity. Corporations should allocate legal resources upfront to globally secure great names, rather than fight losing battles over weak names later.** **

Recommendations

To measure the effectiveness of a name, obtain a professional detailed analysis of your specific name in conjunction to your particular markets and in your special hierarchy of naming architecture All this further backed by solid suggestions along with new choices for brand new 5 Star quality names.

This is not difficult at all. However, it is imperative that proper Rules of Corporate Naming and right expertise is applied. A properly executed exercise is the best solution to a lingering problem.

Naseem Javed founded ABC Namebank International. ABC operates from a sophisticated, custom built, multi-million dollar facility north of Toronto, with a branch office in New York. He is the author of 'Naming for Power', and is recognized as a world authority on global image positioning and name identities. He advises CEOs of Fortune 500 and other leading corporations on all matters of complex global naming in the e-commerce. He is currently lecturing at major conferences on cutting-edge ideas on image building. Mr. Javed can be contacted at 212-697-7700 or nj@njabc.com Extended Bio...

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