What is in a Business or Product Name

May 23, 2008

When someone says, “there goes another Pink Lady” what comes to mind? Want a great burger? Go to the “Home of the Whopper.” Need some fries with that delicious flame-broiled burger — drive on down to Mickey D’s, or as some know it, “Those Golden Arches.”

Mary Kay. Burger King. McDonald’s. Everyone knows these merchants by name recognition. Another term associated with the concept of name recognition is “branding.“ Marketing consultants long ago devised this methodology, which is highly effective and evolves with your business, making it a must-have for any profit-making business. From the smallest neighborhood dry cleaner to the Burger Kings and McDonald’s all over the globe — all working businesses intuitively know that branding and name recognition are key to keeping a business name and its product in the forefront of the customer’s mind when that customer thinks of a consumable product, therefore continuing that profitable retailer-has-what-consumer-wants-so-consumer-shops-with-retailer-and-keeps-coming-back-too idea moving ahead at full locomotive speed. Everybody gets what they want — a win-win deal to be sure.

How does a business develop and maintain name recognition with its ever-changing and increasingly discerning buying public?

Work with your marketing gurus or hire a top-notch consultant, then start with the basics:

Establish and develop a viable and consumable product — something the customer will want again and again
Determine your business’s market place — locally, nationally, internationally
“Personalize” the branding and name recognition of your company’s name with its own distinctive, eye-catching logo, a unique color scheme, perhaps some trendy typeface, and a killer slogan
Initiate your branding/marketing/name recognition campaign — and keep it going — in whatever advertising venue best suits your niche, and is cost effective to your growing business (remember, as your business grows so too can your level of marketing)
Then, go out there to your buying public, reaching as wide an audience as possible within your chosen niche and geographic location — your name recognition campaign could be via radio, television, billboard, door-to-door flyers, the Internet, and/or business-to-business reciprocal referrals, etc., etc.

Companies like UPS and Target have mastered this name recognition methodology. It takes vision and belief in your product, the willingness to spend some money to advertise and market your business and its product so you will have a return on your branding and name recognition efforts, and it takes perseverance to continue to check the consumer barometer from time to time to confirm your product is still a viable consumable, that your business is still branded in its unique name recognition with your buying public, and to make tweaks and improvements when necessary. UPS and Target, among a multitude of other small to large corporations “get it” in knowing the value of effective branding and name recognition…your business can achieve these same results.

Think of UPS and the color brown immediately pops into your mind, right? Try thinking of the color brown without thinking of UPS…can’t do it can you? Brown is everywhere: their UPS trucks, their uniforms, their logo, and even their slogan: “What can brown do for you?” With this kind of visually effective color association to product and company name, UPS guarantees itself a large customer base by branding and name recognition: think brown; think package delivery — call UPS. Conjure in your mind a bulls-eye — that distinctive, huge red and white round circle — and you instantly associate this with Target, the store for Everyman. How can you avoid it — along any major highway strip mall is that larger-than-life bold red and white bulls-eye and the name Target right there in huge block letters. Target shoots the arrow dead-center bulls-eye for its consumers with its on-target slogan: “Expect more. Pay less.” What could any cost-conscious consumer think is a better deal than this? Grabs you. Keeps you coming back…to Target…to get super value for not a lot of your bucks. Name recognition mission on-target!

The next time a consumer needs something — be it moisturizer, foundation, a great burger and fries, some dishwasher soap, or a great new pair of trendy jeans or hiking boots, this customer could call up the Pink Lady she knows in her neighborhood for her Mary Kay products, then hop in the car and drive down to Burger King or McDonald’s for that tasty meal, and then buzz over to Target and finish up with the household staples and that hot pair of jeans…maybe buy her husband those affordable and high-quality hiking boots too. It’s all in a name — name recognition in direct relation to branding one’s product in the desired market niche for best return on your output of cost to produce and sell your product, the manpower needed to do business, and the marketing and advertising methods put in place to gain customer acquisition and continued retention. There’s everything in a name, so get out there and get your name in front of those potential customers — brand your name into the customer’s mind — he and she will come…and keep coming…and your business will grow…and keep growing.

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