What's in a Name?

If you're like most marketers, there are some things that come easy and other aspects of marketing that remain for even the most advanced marketing professionals. My area of weakness comes into play anytime I'm responsible for a new product launch.

I'm on a team right now going through the renaming of a product and thankfully we've hired an outside agency to help us with renaming this product. I'm definitely learning some key elements of a successful name-related strategy during this process, but the one take-away is that your name has to be memorable. So much so that I'll say this... "if your product or company name is not memorable, nothing else matters!"

Disagree with me, argue the point, do what you like. But the fact remains that memorability is the most fundamental and important naming strategy. Here's a good example. Think about Starbucks for a moment. Now, try to name 5 other coffee houses. Difficult to do - isn't it? Why is that?

Of course much of this has to do with branding, repetition, and effective marketing but I believe it also has to do with simplicity and memorability. Send me some more examples and I'll add them to this post.