The UK's Liveliest Small Business Newsletter
Old archive | New site
|
|
Brick No57: Why the world's best-known marketing men are wrong
By Matt Weston, Tuesday 13 April 2004 Al Ries and Jack Trout, according to the back cover of their book 'Positioning', are "undoubtedly the world's best-known marketing strategists". (They've sold millions of books, so I'm not here to argue with that). But in 'Positioning' they devote fully two chapters to the "single most important marketing decision you can make . . . what to name the product". Eh? Naming your product or business is the single most important marketing decision you can make? I disagree wholeheartedly. And I don't care how many copies 'Positioning' has sold. Do Ries and Trout really think that for John Lewis its choice of name was more important than its promise, "never knowingly undersold"? Or that what makes Marmite remarkable is the name of the product, not the fact that you "either love it, or you hate it"? (I love it.) Does Adidas shift football boots because of its choice of name or because they're endorsed by David Beckham and Zinedine Zidane? (I'm not arguing that the word Adidas doesn't now represent a strong brand value, just that it wouldn't have mattered whether it was originally called Adidas or Idadis) And was MacDonald's roaring success primarily due to a great name or because of those magical six words, "Do you want fries with that?" What really makes the tills ring? I've never seen a small business go to the wall simply because it had the wrong name. Choosing your name is far less pivotal decision than working out your USP; how your product really benefits your customer; how you turn that benefit into a message that your customer can understand; and how you get that message out to your market. And it's less important than finding ways to get your customers to spend more with you, and to tell other prospects about your business. Names I like My take on choosing your business or product name is to think of it as the headline to your sales pitch. I've talked before about the necessity of getting your message across in no more than 10 words. If your name can help you do that, so much the better. That's why for small businesses like ours, I much prefer simple descriptive names and real names to meaningless ones. Descriptive names like Band-Aid, Toys R Us, Head & Shoulders, Pot Noodle, and The Body Shop work, simply because they help you get your product benefit across quickly. DOSH Software, based down in Horsham, has a great name. It sells simple accounting software for small businesses. It helps you manage your DOSH! The name is simply part of the sales appeal. (That's why we chose business bricks - because we don't even need to say,"helping you build your own small business".) But if you can't coin a name that does that, don't despair. Use your commonsense: choose a name that is simple, memorable and easily spelt. Check out it's not in use already, the web address is available, and that it doesn't mean anything foul in Swedish or Russian. Road-test it on prospective customers. Then move swiftly on to the more important business of getting new customers, and keeping them. Remember to sign up: back to top |
|
|
Link to us | Privacy Policy | Disclaimer | ©2005 Business Bricks Ltd
Designed by Mint Digital