What's up brand builders Stephen Houraghan here at BrandMasterAcademy.com and in this video you're
going to learn how to choose an epic brand name for your business so you can step away from the
boring sameness of the competition and leave a burning imprint in the mind of your audience
now if you're new to the channel where have you been if you want to build brands that go
beyond the visuals using strategy psychology and creative thinking then you are in the right place
hit that subscribe button and the notification bell if you want to fast track your results
make sure you grab the pro brand strategy blueprint it's a free download the link is
in the description now without a doubt naming a brand is one of the most emotionally charged
tasks within the whole spectrum of branding and that's because of the sentimentality
attached to it when we name things when we learn to name things growing up we'll
name things that we're emotionally attached to we'll name our toys we'll name our first pet then
we might name our first car when it comes along and then we'll start to name our children as they
come along and then ultimately we'll name our businesses so when it comes to naming a brand
for the first time that task usually falls to the business owner now most business owners
will approach this task in the same way that they approach any other task when naming anything else
throughout their lives they'll approach it with that sentimentality point of view and listen i'm
not saying that sentimentality doesn't play a role i mean if the business owner is emotionally
attached to the business and there is that sentimentality there then they're far more
likely to get behind the business but really when it comes to naming a brand it's all about
the audience it's all about connecting with the audience with who they are with what they want
and that sentimentality doesn't really come into play nobody really cares about who the owner's
dog was or what street they first lived on and if the business owner takes that sentimentality
into naming their business then it misses the opportunity to connect with who the audience
is and that is ultimately the role of the name of the brand is to connect with that audience so what
is the goal of the brand name well the brand name has multiple goals but the main goal that it has
is memorability the brand needs to be remembered and that name plays a really important role
in whether or not the brand will be remembered but memorability is not the only task that the brand
name has the brand name plants a seed in the mind of the audience so that the audience remembers the
brand but that seed then needs to grow and that grows into the image and the position that the
brand wants to own in the mind of the audience so what makes a great brand name well as i've already
covered it's not sentimentality and if you're able to remove the task from the business owner or
if the business owner is able to step away from that sentimentality then the outcome is
far more likely to be effective but there are two main characteristics of a great brand name
the first as we've already covered is memorable it needs to be memorable that is the job of the
brand name if the brand name is forgotten if the audience cannot remember what the brand is called
then the brand name has failed in its primary task it needs to be remembered if it's catchy
and that adds to the memorability great but that is the task of the brand name it needs to be
remembered the second characteristic is that it needs to be strategic it needs to help
to solidify a position in the mind of the audience and solidify that image of how the brand wants to
be remembered so if those two characteristics are included in the brand name in that it's memorable
and it is strategic then it's well on the way to being a great brand name so let's take a look at
a few brand name ideas an example now the first brand name idea is the founder brand so this is
where the brand is named after the founder and there are a couple of very famous examples here
in both mcdonald's and ford mcdonald's named by the mcdonald's brothers and ford named by henry
ford the next example of a brand name idea is the descriptive brand name so this is where the brand
name describes what the company actually does so an example here would be coffee club or toys r us
after that we have the aligned brand name so this is where the brand name uses associations or
metaphors to align with an idea so i'll give you an example here amazon aligns with the vastness
of the amazon jungle and virgin alliance with that idea of new and innovative next up is the invented
brand name now the invented brand name has no real meaning or association essentially it's a figment
of somebody's imagination and the word actually doesn't exist so a couple of examples here would
be google or pixar or xerox lexical brand names are where related words are combined to enhance
memorability so you might have two words with the same first letter so an example of this would
be dunkin donuts or krispy kreme next up is the acronym brand name now to be honest i'm not a big
fan of this brand name type and it's definitely not something that i would recommend any of my
clients do but that's not to say that it can't work and there are some very famous examples of
acronym brand names such as bmw mtv and ibm and then finally we have the geographical
brand name and essentially these brands are aligning themselves to a flag or an origin
from where they've come and that usually comes with a certain type of reputation so an example
here would be singapore airlines or swiss brand so how do you choose a brand name well i'm going
to give you a six step process that you can use to choose or find a great brand name for your own
business or for your clients step number one create your buyer persona now as i mentioned
earlier the brand name is not about the founders not about the business owner and it's not about
their sentimentality it's about the audience who they are what they're looking for what they want
what they're feeling and when you understand the image that you want to create in the mind
of your audience that's when you can create a really effective brand name but first step is
understanding who that audience is so go out and create your audience avatar step number two define
your differentiator now this is the strategic aspect of the brand name if your differentiator
the position that you want to own in the mind of your audience is included or associated with
the brand name then the chances of your audience remembering your brand for that image or for that
position is significantly increased so make sure you define your differentiator that you know what
it is you know the position that you want to take in the mind of your audience before naming your
brand step number three is brainstorm keywords so now that you know who the audience is and you know
the difference that you want to own in their mind that you want to be known for in the marketplace
now you can start to gather ideas for your brand name now this needs to be exhaustive and there
is no bad idea at this stage you want to get out everything you want to include every single word
that can be even loosely associated with your audience or the difference that you want to own
in their mind so take the time here to exhaust out every single idea possible in both keywords
and brand name ideas and take your time with this really exhausted and go as far as you possibly can
step number four is integrate amalgamate and consolidate now this step really is dependent
on the previous step being exhaustive in that you have taken the time to get as many ideas and as
many keywords as possible because here you're going to merge you're going to truncate you're
going to extend and really push the boundaries in terms of what's possible you're going to
merge words together you're going to chop words up you're going to create something
out of nothing and really the more time you take with this the more chances you have of coming up
with something new and something unique so really involve a heavy dose of creativity here take the
time to integrate amalgamate and consolidate step number five is quality filtered now chances are if
you've done this correctly you are going to have a lot of crap remember i said earlier that there
is no bad idea early on and you want to exhaust as many avenues as possible but when you get to
step number five here you're going to have a lot of crap and you're going to need to filter
all of that through some quality control and the quality control that you want to filter it
through is to ask is it memorable is it strategic and is it concise if you're able to filter it
through that quality control and it comes out the other side and it takes all of those boxes
then you're well on the way and step number six real world application so this is where
you apply your brand name into the real world so you stack it up alongside the competitors within
your industry you stack it alongside the global brands of the world to see how it fits to see
if it feels right for your brand you can also put this into submission statements into some
vision statements into industry sentences to see how it fits within your industry and how it fits
for your brand now look there is a reason that business owners get hung up on the brand name
partly because it's sentimental to them but partly because it's extremely important the brand name is
one of the most difficult things to change within a brand so essentially it's like marriage once
you choose that name it is very difficult to change so you need to make sure that the name
has strategy behind it you need to make sure that it is memorable you need to make sure that it's
going to stand the test of time and represent your brand for the image that you want to own in the
mind of your audience but if you get it right not only can it enhance the memorability of your brand
it can act as a pollinator to sprinkle the mind of your audience with the seed that is your brand
position now once you plant that seed the tagline and the slogan can act as the rain to help that
seed grow if you want to understand the strategic difference between the tagline and the slogan then
this video will help you out until next time brand like a master and i'll see you in the next video