How do you produce a good business name? Get it right and the rewards are huge: instant brand recognition and a permanent place in your customer’s memory.
But get it wrong and the stakes couldn’t be higher. Who can forget Royal Mail’s disastrous rebrand to ‘Consignia’ 20 years ago? After 16 months of public bewilderment and ridicule, the new name was gone, along with the chief executive who oversaw the reinvention, and it was back to good old Royal Mail. The lesson? If your business name is turning off potential buyers, you’ll need to change direction – quick!
So, what’s in a name? What makes the good, good – and how can you create the perfect name for your fledgling business? Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any set formulas for success: some of the world’s biggest brand names have their roots in twists of history rather than carefully considered marketing choices devised by multi-million-pound creative agencies.
A brief history of great brand names
Adidas, for example, is a simple shortening of the brand’s founder’s name – Adolf (or ‘Adi’) Dassler. Adobe was the name of a creek that ran behind co-founder John Warnock’s house. And IKEA is taken from four initials: Ingvar Kamprad, the furniture brand’s founder, and Elmtary and Agunnaryd, the farm and village in which he grew up.
But not all major brand names and built like this. Lots of other famous company names went through a more considered process. In Denmark, for example, carpenter Kirk Christiansen was looking for the perfect name for his new construction toys for children. It was 1932 when he decided to merge the two Danish words that made up the phrase ‘play well’ – leg godt. Today, almost 90 years on, Lego is a global phenomenon. By 2015, 600 billion Lego parts were in global circulation.
Another success story comes from Jeff Bezos, now the world’s richest man with an estimated net worth of more than $151 billion. The Amazon founder originally named his online store Cadabra, only to change it when someone misheard it as ‘cadaver’. His next choice was Relentless, but reports suggest this was ditched amid concerns it was too creepy. Eventually, Amazon was chosen – with the world’s largest river a perfect metaphor for what Bezos hoped to achieve with his venture.
Finally, we’ve all heard of millions, billions, maybe even trillions. But do you know the word for the number represented by a 1 followed by 100 zeros? A googol was the inspiration of Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they founded Google: the number was so large it was meant to represent all the information they hoped to provide to their users!
Setting up your new business
It’s hard work and far from simple, but if you can find a strong brand name for your new business, you’ll have a key identifier that can quickly help to lift you above your competition.
But you’ll also need a range of other things in place, such as a business bank account, tax advice and a payment solution like a card machine. Not to mention a great product or service with an eager market.
United Merchant Services has several fantastic deals for new businesses. If you’re looking for a card terminal, or want to understand a little bit more about the different card payment solutions available, we’re happy to help.
