Need up to 30 seconds to load.
there are an estimated 300 million
companies in the world today that's 300
million brands some brands as big as
Apple and coca-cola others are smaller
than one person business with so many
brands in the world it's getting harder
to create and find a unique name so how
do you create a great brand name
how can you play and win the name game
you start with three steps first select
what type of name you want there are
seven different categories of names and
pretty much every brand in the world
falls within one of these seven
categories eponymous names like Disney
and Burberry work by embodying the
vision and beliefs of their founders
these names are okay if you're feeling
lazy or just have a big ego adidas is
more unique its derive from Adi Dassler
the company's founder and Tesla wasn't
created by Nikola Tesla he died in 1943
but the name is an homage to Tesla's
electrical engineering achievements
descriptive names like American Airlines
and the home depot work by telling you
exactly what the company does but these
names can be a mouthful and are much
harder to own and protect acronyms like
GE and BP are just shorthand versions of
descriptive names some acronyms are more
strategic Kentucky Fried Chicken
switched to KFC because Fried Chicken
didn't sound too healthy and the Hong
Kong and Shanghai bank changed to eight
that changed to hate HSBC to help the
bank expand globally real words like
uber and slack a rip right out of a
dictionary and suggest attributes or
benefits uber literally means an
outstanding example so it works well for
a company with big broad bold ambitions
beyond ride-hailing now real words might
seem like good ideas but in a world of
300 million companies it's getting
harder to find a name had it hard is
hard to find any real words left in the
dictionary composite names like Facebook
and ray-ban are created by gluing two
words together these names have a kind
of one-two punch and can be really
memorable because it's so hard to find
real words companies like Kleenex and
of invented names by changing adding or
removing letters for impact
now inventing names can be highly unique
but if you're not careful they can start
to sound like pharmaceutical drugs or
worse the name of a sofa from Ikea
associative names work by reflecting
imagery meaning back to there back to
the brand the Amazon in South America is
the world's largest river
therefore the earth's biggest selection
of books clothes content and so on
Sirius is the brightest star therefore
the radio channels where you can hear
the brightest stars of music and
entertainment and Red Bull Associates to
a drink with bull light qualities such
as power and confidence some brands are
derived from non-english languages like
Samsung which means three stars in
Korean Lego means play well in Danish
Zappos comes from the Spanish word
sapatos for shoes and Hulu comes I bet
you didn't know that Hulu actually comes
from a Chinese proverb a Hulu is a ball
used to store precious things finally
the seventh type is a abstract names
names like Rolex and encoder these names
have no intrinsic meaning but instead
rely on the power of phonetics to create
really powerful brand names okay so once
you decided what type of name you want
you need to decide what you want the
name to say and look of course it's
tempting to create names that talk about
who created them or what you do or where
you operate but the best brand names
don't don't describe they stand for a
big idea ones that translates into
emotional appeal Nikes about winning
GoPros about heroism Apple is about
simplicity and usability and Google
comes from the math term that's a one
with a hundred zeros after it
so that really big number helps support
the company's really big original vision
to organize the world's information so
as you think about your new brand think
carefully and ask yourself what's your
big idea the third step is to check the
name isn't already taken you might have
to create hundreds of names perhaps
thousands before you find one that's
even available and of course don't
forget to check the name means doesn't
mean anything negative in other
languages or countries the last thing
you want is an embarrassing naming fail
like this brand of toilet paper from
Sweden
finally a few words about alphabet the
parent company of Google are now one of
the world's most valuable companies much
has been said and written about the
business strategy but I'll say a few
words about the name is alphabet a great
name
you bet first of all the name is an idea
as we all know an alphabet is a set of
letters that forms the basis of all
language and communication second the
name provides a playful link back to the
companies underneath G for Google C for
calico and finessed X and so on
third the name encourages Wall Street
investors buy this stock and you're
making an alpha bet one that will
outperform others and last of all the
name is a real dictionary word which is
a rare find these days now there was
only one issue with alphabet car company
BMW owned the URL alphabet com but you
know here's the thing
only the dot-com doesn't matter as much
these days now that we find stuff
through Google search and we connect
with brands through social media and
smartphone apps so alphabet the company
forgot about alphabet calm and instead
found a shorter and more unique web
address ABC dot XYZ thank you
Thank You Jonathan
![How To Name Your Brand Effectively [7 Simple Steps]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/9VqYnLMFZgQ/mqdefault.jpg)
