EP#24 - Is Apple a good business name? Did Hitler come up with the name Volkswagen?! Naming your business and why it’s as easy or as difficult as you want to make it.

What’s the perfect name for a business? *Disclaimer* If you haven’t got a product yet, call it anything remotely sensible and don’t listen to this episode. It's a waste of your time - focus on your product first.  Have a clear indication of the message you are trying to portray and what your brand needs to communicate.  How are your main competitors naming their brands, and how will you fit into the market. 4 types of name - descriptive, suggestive, abstract and legacy. Descriptive: names that describe what the company does like Snapchat, PayPal, DirecTV, Playstation and Toys R Us. Suggestive: they set an evocative mood for the brand like Apple, Sky, O2, Red Bull and Uber. Abstract: these are made up words that have a strong memorable sound and have the potential to gain new meaning like Google, Skype, Kodak, Yahoo and Rolex. Legacy: these include founder’s names, nicknames and organisation acronyms that may already be in use, even if not officially, like Ferrari, Chanel, Adidas, IBM and H&M.; Six Apart. It could relate the history of the field that your in, like Karl Drais - inventor of the bicycle. Or TeslaShortMemorableUniqueDescriptiveAvailable (companies house / trademark search) There’s a differenceUses AlliterationWhat domain name can you getIf you want to come across as a premium brand try to avoid the comical sounding names, you’ll want something more sophisticated. Try to imagine your target audience and figure out if they would appreciate it.  Write a brief and try and hit it, but if you can’t just call it whatever and crack on you can always change it later. What’s a good example of a company name? Redcross Volkswagen - Peoples Car Loaf - soft sounding, rounded, describes bread which is warm and soft, also means lazing about.  What’s a bad example of a company name? Something difficult to pronounce or spell. Something so long that you can’t abbreviate it and it till makes sense.  Abbreviations in general are very easy to forget.  Testing if the name looks good - Write your shortlist of names in helvetica font without any branding to see if they look good just as a word.