“I went to school on Tom’s ideas!”
Jeff Taylor, Founder, Monster.com
A Clear Eye.
On customers, brands and marketplace success
by Tom Asacker
“I went to school on Tom’s ideas!”
Jeff Taylor, Founder, Monster.com
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Someone forwarded me a link to a post titled, A dumb branding strategy. In it the author writes:
Jewelry Central is a really bad brand name. So are Party Land, Computer World, Modem Village, House of Socks and Toupee Town.
It's a bad brand name because Central or Land or World are meaningless. They add absolutely no value to your story, they mean nothing and they are interchangeable. "Here honey, I bought you these cheap earrings at Diamond World!" Not only are they bland, but you can't even remember one over the other. This is the absolute last refuge of a marketer who has absolutely nothing to say and can't even find the guts to stand for what they do. It's just generic.
First of all, naming is not a "branding strategy." It may be a component of a brand strategy, especially if the name is supposed to help create an expectation, e.g. Jiffy Lube and DieHard. Otherwise, the name is simply a label, a placeholder. The meaning is co-created by the company and its audience over time.
Secondly, words like Central, Mart, World, and Depot may be meaningless, but Comedy Central, Wal-Mart, Disney World, and Home Depot each convey a lot of meaning. So do bland acronyms like BMW, SAP, IBM, and BBC. And TIAA-CREF, AFLAC, GEICO and GE. Likewise common terms like Tide, Target, and Apple. And so do some people's names, like McDonald's, Honda, Gillette, Dell, Hewlett Packard and Harley-Davidson. Even silly labels like Google, Twitter, and Wii, and names that are somewhat misleading like Southwest Airlines and Christmas Tree Shops, have come to mean a lot to a lot of people.
Can you choose a truly bad brand name, not counting legal considerations? Of course you can. Reebok's brand name "Incubus" for women's sneakers comes to mind (Incubus was the name of a medieval demon that sexually assaulted women in their sleep). So definitely do your homework. That being said, do names matter all that much? Is there some sort of causal relationship between a good brand name and more rapid and profitable growth? History tells me no. But I may be wrong. Has anyone ever seen a prospective study that proves the hypothesis? If so, please send it my way.
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It's simple: the name is a symptom of the strategy.
There's just now way Phil Knight would have named his company Sneaker Central. The name would have belied his desire to create something that mattered and lasted and transcended the category.
If you'd pointed out the rest of the post, my point was that generic nothing names often lead to a strategy of suing everyone to encourage them not to use Central, World, etc., which is another symptom of the same broken strategy.
Comedy Central would have been a stupid, stupid strategy if there had been ten cable tv channels covering comedy. The sole reason the 'brand' became valuable is a lack of choice/competition.
Disney World is a lousy counter example, because 'Disney' is the unique brand, where 'Jewelry' is just a commodity.
Posted by: Seth Godin | March 30, 2008 at 04:35 PM
Okay, I follow your point Seth. Phil Knight would not have named his company Sneaker Central, because it was never his intention to be a retailer of sneakers. But I'm not buying the idea that a brand name is an indication of ones strategy. Nor do I believe that the name Comedy Central would have necessarily been a poor choice given an abundance of choice. It's how one infuses meaning into the name that truly makes the brand difference.
However, I do agree that Disney World is a lousy counter example. But for the life of me, I can't understand why you didn't address the absolutely valueless name of Home Depot. :)
Posted by: Tom Asacker | March 30, 2008 at 06:43 PM
Well, I could give you special reasons all day long, which is sort of silly. But I don't think 'depot' is as wasteful and empty as Central and World... Most people who say "Home Depot" don't associate the word depot with a common word. That and they don't sell homes.
As for brand being an indicator: The great brands, the ones that can sell goods for not just a discount (ie not Home Depot) have names that signal that intent. Tiffany and Apple and Starbucks and Chubb Insurance.
Posted by: Seth Godin | March 30, 2008 at 09:01 PM
Apparently, Mr. Godin has seen such a study, as he claims, "Most people who say 'Home Depot' don't associate the word depot with a common word." Where is the research data to support this?
Also, how does a common word like 'Apple' inherently signal intent to sell at a premium?? It's not the word, it is the way they have done business and product development over 25 years that has associated the name of a common fruit with excellent and innovative products! What am I missing?
Posted by: Daniel | March 31, 2008 at 03:27 PM