The Name Game - My Sixth Lesson In Product Marketing
Over the span of my career, I have been associated with dozens of products. Nearly all of these products had names.
As a young engineer, I took these names for granted and did not give much thought to their value. Along the way, some magnificent marketeers have provided me with an education on the art of naming products.
I have found that product names fall into four categories - Utilitarian, Descriptive, Empty Vessel, and End Result - with no right or wrong answers. The Name Game is an art that - when done well - can greatly improve the value of your product or business.
Here are some insights from my personal journey:
Utilitarian Names
My first few jobs after college were spent working for technology companies. They were founded by scientists and engineers. Their customers were like-minded people with deep technical expertise.
The products I worked with were typically named by the engineers who designed them. They were utilitarian names that spoke directly to the specifications of the product. Little forethought was given to the marketing value of these names. However, this did not negatively impact the product due to the markets and customer-types they served.
For example, the first product I worked on was a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanner. This product was developed by our company - Fonar - and our scanner’s magnetic field strength was 3000 gauss. As such, our product was called the Fonar 3000.
My next job was for a satellite electronics manufacturer, Satellite Transmission Systems. When we released the first generation of our Uplink Power Controller, we aptly named the product the UPC-100.
These names were unimaginative, but they worked.
Descriptive Names
Next, I worked for a satellite arm of AT&T. Here, I received my first exposure to real marketeers.
Our service provided satellite-based video communications for large corporations and government agencies. The AT&T marketeers named the product Vistacast. This was a descriptive name that captured the big picture of the service we provided.
The name provided us with three great benefits:
Increased Sales: Our competitors tended not to name their products. For example, one competitor called their Business Television Services: BTV Services. By giving our product an actual name, it gave the product better market credibility. This resulted in increased sales.
Less Customization: By having a “named” product, customers tended to by our product as offered, with little or no customization. This allowed our technology teams to stay focused on improving the product and improving our scalability.
Fewer Price Concessions: Our sales and marketing teams also found that by naming and tightly packaging our product pricing, we were able to shorten sales cycles and largely avoid pricing concessions.
Empty Vessel Names
The “dot-com” boom gave rise to a new type of name, the Empty Vessel. These names - like Google, Yahoo, and Amazon - became all rage.
The rational behind this new type of name made sense for two reasons:
They were sexy and different, giving the business tremendous market value.
By not tying the product names to the product attributes, the product was free to pivot - or evolve - in any direction they chose.
It should be noted that two of the best product names of the dot-com era combined descriptive and empty vessel elements. They are:
YouTube: An empty vessel that implied a user-generated video content service.
NetFlix: An empty vessel name that implies movies delivered over the internet.
End Result Names
When I founded my first business - a consulting company - I was first introduced to the concept of an End Result name.
One of our co-founders - a brilliant marketeer from AT&T, Donna Barrett - proposed calling the business “Enliten.” She explained that the name evoked the end result that our clients would be looking for from a consulting company.
She was right. The name resonated in the marketplace, allowing our little start-up to rapidly sign Fortune 100 clients.
She also suggested that using the creative misspelling of the name - Enliten, as opposed to Enlighten - would improve the value of the company. The available data of the day that showed business names with seven letters had higher valuations than other names, particularly if you could get the 1-800 telephone number with your name (1-800-ENLITEN).
This gave me even greater appreciation for other seven letter business names, like YouTube and Netflix.
The Lesson I Learned
The main lesson I learned is that any name can ultimately be successful, but that care should be given to choose the right category for your product name.
Ultimately, you want a memorable name that will help your product sell faster and for a higher price.
I also learned to beware of pitfalls, such as a descriptive name that might be short-lived in a rapidly evolving technical marketplace.
Another negative lesson (from Enliten) is that misspelling a company name can create market confusion.
Personally, I strive to use End Result names wherever possible. Two of the most successful products I have been associated with were called Tempo and Inspire.
Last year, when given the opportunity to select a name for my new business (Butterpie), I decided to select an Empty Vessel name. This is because I wanted to have maximum flexibility in where this new adventure leads.
If you are looking for guidance in selecting a name for your product, service, or business - we are happy to help. Please contact us to start the conversation.