How To Create Brand Names Worthy of Social Media

Friday, January 8th, 2010

Why do brand names matter? For one, brand names are how consumers instantly recognize who and what you are. Brand names let consumers find you and talk about you with ease and clarity.

What makes a great brand name? Great brand names are instantly recognizable by everyone. Who doesn’t know what products are created by Chrysler, Coca-Cola, or Walmart? Just hearing these words conjures up images of each of the products. However, social media brings a new consideration for branding, namely, would you be able to find your own brand name if you were to search for it on the internet?

Let’s consider Chrysler. Is there any possible way that someone would use the word “Chrysler” to refer to anything other than an automotive company? A search for Chrysler on the internet brings up nothing but mentions of vehicles, a perfect scenario. Let’s now consider Coca-Cola. As with Chrysler, an internet search of Coca-Cola brings up nothing but mentions of the beverage. But wait… how does the average consumer talk about Coca-Cola? Not as Coca-Cola but simply as coke.  A search of the word “coke” brings up many non-beverage mentions. In fact, interspersed among many legitimate uses of the word, this search returns many, many results for a very addictive and illegal drug. This is certainly not a best case scenario for social media monitoring. The task of separating which mentions of  “I’m addicted to coke” refer to the beverage versus the drug is an intricate process. But, brand recognition for Coca-Cola is so incredible that it would be extremely detrimental for them to rebrand simply to accommodate social media. Who else might have some difficulty? How about “The Gap” or “Target,” both stores with great brand recognition but extremely low uniqueness in terms of their name.

Other brands have gone through the rebranding process, though clearly not with social media in mind. Electrasol, a wonderful and 100% unique brand name, recently rebranded its dishwashing detergent to “Finish.” A quick search on the internet reveals that this new name will make the task of picking out conversations of the detergent extremely difficult. The same must be said for Dominion, a grocery store which recently rebranded to “Metro.” Given the widespread use of the word metro to refer to subway trains and metropolitan areas, this chain will also have difficulties taking advantage of social media.

On the other hand, some brands have made great decisions. Changing “Indian Shaving Products Limited” to “Gillette” was a great move. Gillette is a word that would rarely be used to mean anything other than the shaving products company. They should have no fear that their search results will return vast quantities of irrelevant data. Who else might navigate the social media waters with ease? How about Nissan, Molson, IBM, and Radioshack. Instantly recognizable and unique names ripe for social media research.