Your business strategy makes your brand name
Why a brand name that doesn't reinforce your strategy trashes cash
What is the best-named product in history?
Some might say the iPhone, the LEGO brick, the Xerox copier, or Twitter.
But my personal favorite is something completely different. In fact, it isn’t even a product at all.
It is a component of a fridge.
In 1936, the company Frigidaire (a subsidiary of GM) asked Albert Lasker – a founding father of the advertising industry – for help with increasing their sales of refrigerators.
Frigidaire wanted to build the campaign around the benefits such as fast-freezing, low operating costs, and five-year guarantee.
But Lasker knew that what stopped most people from buying a fridge wasn’t lack of features – but the idea of a meter ticking away 24/7, racking up expensive electric bills they might not be able to pay.
Frigidaire’s benefits only appealed to those who had already decided to buy a fridge – but not to the millions who believed they couldn’t afford electric refrigeration in the first place.
Lasker decided the fridge needed a rebranding centered on its energy efficiency.
But how do you make an old product appear new?
You name a special component of the product.
In Frigidaire’s case, it was the new rotary compressor that was far more efficient than older models. As Lasker said:
“All right, we will name the working part. We will give it a name, and then we will say, ‘Frigidaire with the XXX,’ whatever that is.
And then if customers go to see a General Motor Frigidaire, they will ask:
‘Is this the General Motor Frigidaire with the XXX?’.
And they won’t buy it unless it has the XXX.We can’t explain the compressor technically.
It must be two words, where the imagination of the reader will fasten on the fact that nothing is so economical as this.”
After submitting 2,000 options of names, they found a winner:
“Meter Miser”
They renamed the product “Frigidaire with the Meter-Miser”, adding that it was “Made only by General Motors.”
Lasker also contributed a tagline: “Cuts current costs to the bone”. 1
The resulting campaign was a massive success.
But what is it about the name Meter Miser that, in my opinion, makes it one of the best-named products ever?
It came from understanding the customer – the name actually expanded the market by addressing customers’ main concern: cost.
A dull component became a branded ingredient – even if competitors copied Frigidaire’s compressor, they couldn’t copy the brand.
The ‘M__er’ alliteration – Meter Miser was catchy and stuck easily.
But above all, the name said something that reinforced Frigidaire’s business strategy.
Your brand name should say something
Many products have meaningless names. The Polaroid SX-70 camera, for example.
Personally, I believe meaningless product names waste your most precious advertising slot.
The name is the headline that tells customers what the product is – and what it can do for them.
Lasker tested the name Meter Miser with hundreds of customers, and found that 82% said it had something to do with “saving current”.
Meter Miser clearly said something.
…And that “something” should reinforce your strategy
Frigidaire’s strategy wasn’t to beat the competing brands over market share of existing buyers – but to capture the larger market of non-fridge buyers.
If your main objection as a non-customer is electricity costs, then of course, you will be more interested in “Frigidaire with the Meter-Miser” than the competing fridge “Kenmore Coldspot 106”.
The name Meter Miser reinforced Frigidaire’s strategy.
“Coldspot 106” was far too generic to help Kenmore’s strategy – if they even had one.
The 4 business strategies ♟️
I’ve found that there are four major types of business strategies. Each type has a different implication for what brand name you should choose:
Benefit Leader
Emotion Evoker
Niche Winner
Founder Reputation
Let’s explore what each strategy means.
1. Benefit Leader
Benefit leader is when the market is big enough for many alternatives, and your strategy is to be the best on a certain dimension – price, speed, etc.
In this case, the winning formula is often: NAME = BENEFIT + CATEGORY.
Some examples of such names are:
TurboTax: the software that lets you file your taxes with turbo speed.
Cream of Wheat: porridge made from high-quality wheat kernels instead of cornmeal.
3 Day Blinds: a company that installs window blinds within 3 days of placing an order. (Their sales totaled $205M in 2022, with $410,000 per employee). 2
These descriptive names help the customer understand:
What benefit do you promise?
What category are you in?
Picking the wrong word can be a massive drag on your sales.
Oracle’s product “Network Computing Architecture” got absolutely no traction in the marketplace. They then launched a successor called “Internet Computing Architecture”, and sales took off.
The big difference between the two products? The name.
The second signaled that it was about the Internet, which helped customers understand what it was for. 3
If you want to be the leader in a certain category – pick a name that describes your benefit and category.
2. Emotion Evoker
The “opposite” of the benefit leader is the emotion evoker strategy. Here, customers don’t buy because of any particular benefit – but because of the emotions you offer.
In this case, you want a more associative brand name that evokes the right emotions. Be less descriptive about which benefit you promise. Just associate yourself with the right feelings.
Some examples of great emotional names are:
Virgin: A wonderfully cheeky and provocative name! It truly captures the “let’s do things differently and have some fun!” attitude of the company.
Calm: What better name for the meditation app that helps you pause and find your inner peace amidst a stressful day?
Apple: When Apple was founded in 1976, computers were complex objects that intimidated most people from using them. Apple’s strategy was to make the computer user-friendly for the masses. A perfect name would be something simple, friendly, and not intimidating – and “Apple” certainly fulfills that. (Plus, Apple would also be listed above the competitor Atari in the phone book). 4
Pepsodent with “irium”: Another Albert Lasker stunt was to help Pepsodent revive their falling sales. Pepsodent had recently developed a new foaming detergent for their toothpaste. But how to market it?
Lasker’s team came up with the made-up word “irium”, because “it sounded like platinum, it sounded like something precious.”
The name was an immediate success. Customers were craving to know what irirum was. The American Dental Association had to add a full-time staff member just to answer queries about irium from dentists. 5
The more customers buy on emotions – the more your name should evoke those key emotions.
3. Niche Winner
The niche winner strategy is to focus on a market where there’s only room for 1-2 major players.
In this case, a name that describes your niche with crystal clarity is best. 💎
Golf Digest is a great example. Their niche is to be THE sports magazine for golfers, and their name clearly says that.
Calendly was a perfect name for a meeting scheduling software. While there were minimal entry barriers to create a scheduling app, there was actually only room for 1-2 big players.
Why? Because every Calendly user would share their Calendly booking page with all their contacts whenever they needed to find a meeting time. The company that got the most users would keep winning even more users by referral. Calendly just needed a name that told potential users what their product was – and their name did that great.DogVacay (now merged with Rover) is another great name. There was only room for one marketplace for dog sitters, and “DogVacay” instantly communicated what the service was about.
Chess.com and Wine.com are two other examples. Both are the dominant player in their field, and their explicit brand names have no doubt contributed to that success.
If your strategy is to dominate a niche – pick the name that most clearly describes your niche.
4. Founder Reputation
Founder reputation is for services where you as the founder bring a high degree of skill or personal touch to the product.
In this case, using your own name as a “stamp of quality” is often the perfect strategy. People want to be associated with your skills, values, and personality.
Some examples of famous brands built upon the reputation of their founders are:
Disney
Estée Lauder
Ford
Bang & Olufsen
Ralph Lauren
Goldman Sachs
If your product is the visionary craftsmanship of your skill and values as a founder – consider using your own name.
Avoid a “messy middle” name
If you compete in a market where there’ll be more than 2 big winners (and you don’t have founder reputation), your name should reinforce your strategy as a:
Benefit leader – you are the best provider of that benefit.
Emotion evoker – your brand makes people feel something.
Too many names get stuck in the messy middle. They neither describe a benefit nor evoke emotion.
The Body Shop is one such example. They have built a fantastic brand that stands for so many things – taking care of one’s body, natural ingredients, fair trade practices, and animal rights.
But was there no better name than the generic “The Body Shop”?
This name doesn’t communicate a benefit nor evoke emotions – and they are not even in a niche winner market! This name doesn’t do their amazing brand justice.
Southwest Airlines is also a messy middle name. Again, a truly phenomenal brand, and arguably the most beloved airline in the U.S. But this generic name doesn’t communicate any of their benefits of low fares, terrific customer service, or fun-and-easy-going culture.
The Polaroid SX-70 Camera is yet another generic name that doesn’t do the product justice.
Find a name that “sticks”
Regardless of what strategy you use, you want a name that sticks. Here are four techniques for creating such memorable names:
Sharp and Edgy
Names that contain the letters K, Q, X, Z, sharp C, or double PP often have an “edge” to them that makes them more sticky. Eg:
Skype
Pixar
Kodak
Snapple
Zappos
Kleenex
Repetitive
Names that repeat the same sound are far more likely to stick in our brains – and roll off better on our tongues too! Eg:
Meter Miser
TurboTax
Coca-Cola
Kayak
PayPal
Weight Watchers
Sonos
Unexpected
Names that are controversial or use words in a setting you wouldn’t expect are hard to put out of your mind. Eg:
“Virgin” – can’t get more proactive than that!
The name “Slack” for a business chat definitely caused some raised eyebrows.
“Apple Computers” was an unexpected name in an era where people used to think of computers as intimidating science objects.
“Bear Naked” for breakfast granola? You won’t forget that easily.
Meaningful
It’s harder to remember names like Stripe, Adobe, or Vanta that have no obvious meaning for being what they are.
These names do have advantages. They are distinct. And distinctness actually does make them more sticky.
But why not pick a name that is both distinct AND meaningful? Eg:
Shopify
Tesla
Nike
Virgin
Snapple
PayPal
How can you remember these sticky-name techniques?
They spell the word SERUM. 🧪
Sharp and Edgy
Repetitive
Unexpected
Meaningful
“Serum” also sounds like “sears”, and you want a name that “sears” itself into your customer’s brain. 🔥🧠
Summary
The name is the single most important word in your marketing.
The name is the customer’s first impression. The 1-2-word pitch that tells the world who you are.
The purpose of marketing is to reinforce your positioning.
Your name should therefore reinforce your positioning too.
So ask yourself: “What is my strategy?”:
Benefit Leader?
Emotion Evoker?
Niche Winner?
Founder Reputation?
First, choose your strategy.
Then, choose a name that reinforces that strategy.
The Man Who Sold America: The Amazing (but True!) Story of Albert D. Lasker and the Creation of the Advertising Century – by Jeffrey Cruikshank and Arthur Schultz
Softwar: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle – by Matthew Symonds (Author) and Larry Ellison (Commentary)
The Man Who Sold America: The Amazing (but True!) Story of Albert D. Lasker and the Creation of the Advertising Century – by Jeffrey Cruikshank and Arthur Schultz