You can learn a lot from channel-surfing
I was channel surfing on cable TV, and I stopped on one of the Spanish-language channels when I saw the ad for an exercise video. There was a picture of an athletic woman wearing a bikini. The name of the product was "Molding Up."
If English is your first language, you're probably smiling. Exercise fans can find a lot of "shaping up" videos for sale in the US. Artists mold clay. So "Molding Up" might sound like a reasonable name for a fitness program.
Unfortunately, the expression "molding up" has another meaning. If you were to sprinkle water on a slice of bread, and keep it in a warm, moist place for several days, you would look at the turquoise and white growths on the bread, and say that it's "molding up."
Names need to be international
The lesson, of course, is that your company and product names have to be acceptable in other languages. Before deciding upon a name for your firm or your software, ask people from other cultures if the name is friendly or awful, clear or confusing, easy to remember or capable of being spelled 12 different ways. It's worth the extra effort to avoid a name like Molding Up.
In his book "The New Positioning", Jack Trout says, "Shakespeare was wrong. A rose by any other name would not smell as sweet. Not only do you see what you want to see, you also smell what you want to smell. Which is why the single most important decision in the marketing of a perfume is the name you decide to put on the brand."
By locking your product name to a benefit or to a selling proposition, your product positioning is reinforced every time somebody sees your name. Conversely, including a date or a price in your product name can cause problems. Windows 98, for example, sounded much more modern seven years ago than it does today. And the Buck-a-Book chain of stores felt that they had to change their name to Wordz.
Change your name if it's bad
If you're not happy with your product or company name, you can create a new brand, and then emphasize it more than you do your current name. Kimberly-Clark does this. They sell paper towels, but not under the Kimberly-Clark name. In fact, Kimberly-Clark owns the famous and respected "Kleenex" brand. And on every roll of Viva, you'll find the words "Kleenex Brand" in tiny type, and the phrase "Kimberly-Clark" in even smaller type. I don't pretend to understand all of the things that the Viva folks thought about when they made these decisions. But they certainly have given it a lot of thought.
A roll of Bounty paper towels is not without surprises, either. Their packaging says, "See What's New! QuickerPickerUpper.com". How many software developers have domain names for their tag lines?
I've been wrestling with my own branding issues. Twenty years ago, the name DP Directory was a great name for the data processing reference magazine that I published. Now that data processing is called "information processing," the DP Directory name is much less great. So, I've been publicizing the "Al Harberg" brand on my web site and in my newsletter. My corporation is still DP Directory, Inc., but more and more, my brand is Al Harberg.
Jake Steinfeld, the "Body by Jake" guy who uses half-hour late-night television ads to sell exercise and fitness equipment, has written that his brand is his most important asset. He spends an incredible amount of time evaluating toning-up hardware before he'll put his name on it.
Don't mold up!
I certainly don't have all the answers. But as my ideas mold up, I'll be sure to share them with you in my newsletters.
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