When one is in the middle of a project or recently exposed to a concept it suddenly seems like there is a disproportionate coverage on the topic or a sudden cloud fall of consumer use of the product more than you ever noticed or knew about. This same thing happened to me recently when I was leading an effort on naming a new brand.
My agency introduced me to the concept of ‘the direct flight’, “Chemistry.com” is one such example! When you talk of relationships, rarely is there any chance of misunderstanding the term chemistry. If an online dating or matching site is named Chemistry.com, the site clearly must match prospects based on attributes of personal chemistry. The idea of the brand name should be vivid and descriptive enough to take the consumer’s mind on a flight, one that is direct and leads the consumer to imagine the potential product based purely by its name.
In a world where the absence of an interactive marketing strategy spells doom for the brand the availability of a domain can drive the selection of a brand names and moreover results in strange names like, Zillow.com, Squidoo.com, etc. The phenomenon is not limited to web based services, solutions but the physical world too – Wii, Ikea, etc. the list goes on.
Brand names need more than just a direct flight; ability to own and legal protect it; expandability in the event of future extensions; executability for operations to print without stretch, distortion or fit and lastly different from existing products and brands in the category.
