Ries: The Law of the Proper Brand Name

the real thing
Originally uploaded by eschipul

On the subject of rules for brand names.

For readers of this blog it comes as no surprise that I am a big fan of Ries and Trout’s book Positioning. And since then a continued fan with The Fall of Advertising and The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding. They articulate thoughts that just make sense; logically, psychologically and sociologically.

Working in the tech sector and also being a fan of Moore’s Crossing the Chasm I view brand names very much as a sociological pattern. The mavens,
even if your biggest fans, must be able to COMMUNICATE that knowledge
to the early majority. It is YOUR job to give them a strong brand name
to communicate!

Recently rereading the 22 Immutable Laws, I found the chapter I was looking for when I wrote this post on brand naming. Here is a summary:

The Law of the Proper Name (pg 148)

1. The name should be short
2. The name should be simple
3. The name should suggest the category (flickr?)
4. The name should be unique
5. The name should be alliterative
6. The name should be speakable
7. The name should be shocking
8. The name should be personalized

So it
hurts me when I see friends use bad brand names. Not my job to prevent
the world from using irrelevant 10 syllable Russian sounding
cryptographs on the basis of "Hey, IBM uses an acronym!", but if you
must, you must. If however you have a choice, I am going to strongly
suggest you follow Ries’ Law of the Proper Name.

We did, which is why I love our brand name for Tendenci which one of our artists at the time, Randy Sarinas, came up with. Now if only we had a better positioning statement for Tendenci, but that is another blog post.

The Time It Takes to Build a Brand

Newer brands are more newsworthy. This is great for PR.

But conflictingly it takes “10 years to build a brand”. This comes from two sources. And of course there is a creative tension between these objectives.

1. News is by definition bringing you NEW information. Hence news. So it is more likely the paper will write a story about the somewhat controversial Dr. Sketchy’s than it is the Art and Social establishment that hosts it and has been around for 10 years! New is just cooler in America. Young is better than old. Etc.
   1. “While a new brand name is a liability in an advertising program, it’s an asset in a PR program. A new brand name tells the media that the product or service is new and different. Exactly what the media wants to write and talk about.”- pg 257 Ries and Rise in The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR
2. Brands on the other hand take “10 years” to form in the mind of the consumer (Positioning, but these quotes are from “Rise of PR”)
   1. “The real barrier is the human mind. It normally takes decades to build a brand because it takes decades to penetrate the gray matter in between your ears.” – Pg 224
   2. “Successful brands get into the mind slowly. A blurb in a magazine. A mention in a newspaper. A comment from a friend. A display in a retail store. After a slow publicity buildup, people become convinced that they have known about the brand forever. – pg 228

The way I phrase it is an amalgamation of sources and comes out as

"it takes 10 years to form a brand in the mind of the consumer."

This is a depressing statistics for a marketer. But for every Google, there is a Wal-Mart that took decades to get off the ground, or Nike that took decades to get off the ground. Or the slow moving Red Bull that took forever to enter the US market but everyone thinks just appeared.

Wal-Mart,  Nike and Red Bull are the tortoises. It is helpful to remember that when building your brand strategy.

3 Basic Rules of Coming up with a Brand Name

The shortest answer I have ever given someone when they asked me “what should I name our company“.

My answer on coming up with a good brand name for your company:

1. Brand name should be two to four syllables.
2. Hint at but don’t
   directly say what the product is.
3. Be unique so it stays in the mind of the
   consumer.

I know those come from all of the books I have read on marketing and advertising. So I apologize I can’t source the exact references as the ideas are not originally mine. But it is, in my humble opinion, a grand start on finding a good brand name for a product or service.

Primal Branding PPT on Slideshare – Great Find!

The book Primal Branding has influenced my thinking on brands significantly over the years. At the office we even made a collection of digital photos from our own past, our brand story, and loaded them onto rotating digital picture frames. So the new guys can learn a bit about where we came from.

Primal Branding says that a brand has to  have 6 elements to succeed:

1. Creation Story
2. Creed
3. Icons
4. Rituals
5. Pagans
6. Sacred Words
7. Leader

So being a big fan of Primal Branding, it was nice to see this shared PPT on Primal Branding. Good stuff.

End of the line for “Cocaine” Energy Drink

For the Branding nerds, an interesting he said, she said, then he said, then she said, then he said again and he then ran off the balcony flapping his arms screaming he could fly… debate on the energy drink brand name "cocaine" over at BrandChannel.

Cocaine: End of the Line

So much for "speed in a can". Sheeesh.

Mantra and Jennifer Rice on Branding

Through Laura Ries’ blog I just learned about Mantra consulting and Jennifer Rice’s blog on branding. I am excited to learn about another great thinker on branding. Specifically I like this recent post on the brands blog:

What’s Your Brand Mantra?

…The issue of focus versus flexibility in a brand can depend on a couple factors:

1) How new is the brand? Here’s where I completely agree with Laura: new brands should tightly focus. Pick one problem that needs solving and build a reputation for solving it. Netflix solved convenient movie rental. Google solved fast, accurate search. Apple offered a cool new way to compute.

As the brand becomes well-known, it may earn the right to extend its products and services. Sometimes age translates into trust; older brands are familiar and usually within our comfort zone..

So yes I am saying that I agree that there are SOME brands where brand extensions DO work. Some. If you bring this up with me over a beer then you have to pick up the tab. Rarely. Rarely do brand extensions work.

And speaking of brand extensions, have you tried to buy a toothbrush lately? It has gotten to the point where "will it fit in my the toothbrush holder attached to the wall?" is my primary criteria.