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Many brand managers opine
that names don't matter. In
stead, it is the product or service that matters. As a result,
they concentrate on right price, right time, right product, right service, right
market situation, etc. Those Mr. Rights mentioned above
remind us of Shakespeare's famous remark, "What's in a
name?" Today's market scenario shows that a name
can be "everything".
When it comes to developing a brand, name is the single most
important decision which can be taken by the marketer himself. The rest is
decided by customers depending on how distinct the service or product is,
when compared to that of the competitors. Name is the starting point of a
brand's journey into the minds of prospects and a good name will definitely
help the process of positioning a brand in the appropriate manner. In spite
of this known fact, marketers underestimate the power of a brand name
and come up with inappropriate names. Thereafter, the entire brand strategy
is drawn on that faulty name and that is the reason why many new
products fail on the retail shelves.
Outlined here is the example of a brand design and positioning
exercise carried out by the author's firm for a new recruitment agency.
The client was about to commit the same mistake which many
major marketers had been doing! He was thinking of a name which was
derived out of the initials of his first name and surname, and the
proposed name was `VM Consultancy'. The problem with the name
`VM consultancy' was that it would not clearly convey the firm's line of
business, let alone anything else. The brand name of a recruitment
firm should preferably communicate what it does and what it is good
at. When we have a heart problem, we look for some one who
describes himself as a cardiologist. The same would logically apply to a
recruitment agency too. |
