" Your domain name or URL is the only key that can open a Website. Therefore this key had better be easy to type and easy to remember."
 

 

What is it that makes a great name?
Something very short, sweet and simple, like Sony or Telus; something highly related to its goods and services, like Microsoft or PlayStation; something globally protectable like Rolex; and lastly, something with an identically matching dotcom URL as a key to its corporate empire, flowing smoothly on the worldwide e-commerce access, like CNN.com. A great name must have all of the above qualities or it's just an injured identity gasping for oxygen with big-budget advertising firework to hide its latent weaknesses, later to only scream to stay afloat while customers simply ignore it. Healthy names attract customers en masse and injured names repel discreetly.

So the question is: why are so many business names so poorly chosen and so seriously dysfunctional, especially when they continuously hurt their owners who waste huge amounts in advertising fireworks but eventually end up in smoke and go nowhere? Does this also explain why there are endless name changes going on daily, and further, why are these desperate name change processes producing even more "dumb and dumber" identities?

Hence the Lala-land names like Avivent, Viviavent, Ivenvent or PinkRhino, BlueFrog etc. have become the norm. Ever heard that rumor that the world is out of great names? In reality, to create a world class moniker demands a very high level of specialization in corporate nomenclature with understanding and reliance on the processes with commanding knowledge applied using the five-star standard of naming.

Naming is a strictly black-and-white, exercise but is often confused with logos, design, and packaging expertise. The correct processes depend on alpha-structures, languages, connotations, phonetics, secondary meaning, translations, generic issues, trademarks laws, marketing, and the globalization of communication messages with domain registrations laws and many other formal matters.

Five-star standard of naming is a unique methodology with the five following distinct characters of a name:uniqueness, being easy to spell and enunciate, highly related, globally trademarkable and with an identical dotcom URL. If the name does not achieve all of the five qualities then it will miss out on the a five-star standard, the name will be seriously injured, costing ten times more while struggling and eventually dying of exhaustion. Currently in the U.S. and around the world, there are fewer than 5% of corporate names that can successfully pass the five-star tests.

Are there special considerations for cyber-branding?
The issues of cyber-branding and domain name management are even more critical as millions of Websites zip at lightning speed 24/7; therefore it has become critical to have an almost perfect name for this global platform.
Firstly, a domain name or URL is the only key that can open a Website and there is no other device to replace it. Therefore this key had better be easy to type, easy to remember, and most importantly, have sophisticated and well-defined alpha-structure so that it is search-engine friendly and can pop up on the first few pages of any search. Most of the domain names on the Web are twisted, cumbersome, too long to type, and prone to all kinds of confusion when searching as they bury the graphic-intense, million-dollar, complex Websites deep in the e-ocean. Meanwhile the customer picks the deals from the first few pages and has no time to figure out the bottom feeders crawling in hundreds of pages below.

How are naming and branding different?
Branding is designed to execute a pre-determined game plan and to achieve a long-term relationship with branding experience while incorporating all phases of communications. Naming is about creating ownership of that brand as a unique name identity, creating a tangible asset as a trademark, developing a calling device for the customers and a special URL as a key to open the Website on global markets. All this naming strategy and positioning has to be at the very top and as a master plan with a cascading agenda, thus driving the entire engine and subsequently setting a clear positioning that later on drives advertising and branding.

What is voodoo branding?
When pregnant mothers are being pooled to place ads on their round, shiny stomachs as part of "tummy branding," what else could you call it, other than voodoo branding? Most branding agencies would say that this is how news is created. To some, this is "desperate branding" in action.

The word "branding" is dangerously overused. Many agencies use branding as a cure for all kinds of problems in all kinds of businesses. To lay claim to a deeper understanding of this elementary word, branding agencies all over the world have developed some cute variations of it, from "emotional branding" to "primal," "sensory," "musical," "internal," "external," "holistic," "vertical," "abstract," "nervous," all the way to "invisible" branding. However, to see these distinctions, you would need special 3D spectacles. This list of branding types reminds me of the three MIT wizards who took an academic conference for a ride by submitting a paper in all fake jargon: "Rooter: A Methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and Redundancy." Their paper was accepted.

The idea is that when share prices fall, call the branding team and let it apply its "fiscal branding" to mail fancy brochures to shareholders. When products fail, let the "visual branding" make the logo over, and when elevators donÕt work, give it to the "yo-yo branding" unit, as they are the real experts in north and south mobility. Floor please.

Today, branding is a mixed bag of basic, traditional advertising tools, simply waxed and packaged to appear as intellectual advice with an expensive price tag. It is targeted to fit any hungry frame of mind, and is designed to make corporations feel ever so comfortable with terms like "verbal," "digital,""audio," "smelly," "silent," or "loud" branding, as all these terms are designed to offer great safety and invisible lifelines to sinking ships. These ventures often fail, frequently due to lack of substance, quality, intelligence and experience.

U.S. businesses are still very much overdosed with over-branding. The market is simply glutted. Name identity is a matter of intellectual property, which is an everlasting black-and-white asset of the corporation. Logos and designs may come and go, and change along with the agencies.

What are the international ramifications of choosing a name?
Names are only international, burn all the books that say otherwise. Whether we like it or not, marketing is borderless, as is communication and is the worldÕs e-commerce activity. It is na•ve to be smug about a successful statewide or regional name identity while ignoring its lack of functionality in the neighboring country or across the oceansÑit is just all one flat earth. We are now living in a name-economy, where the power of a nation is being measured by the armies of name brands they release on competing country in a battle of borderless customers. The corporations are fully engaged in expanding markets, which demands hassle-free names so that they can travel country to country and park themselves without having to change again and again.

PriceWaterHouseCooper's consultancy and their infamous name change to "Monday" cost them $60 million. Delloitte's consultancy became Braxton and spent $60 million; Accenture spent  $170 million, and BearingPoint, $40 million. This is a just a small example of how much agency firework is required in the upkeep of a poor name, and an attempt to get some much-needed attention in the market. Therefore, for international naming, the corporation must have a solid team backed by a clear leadership in international expertise on global corporate nomenclature.

BSM

 

 

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