By Scott Regan, Chief Executive Officer, strategicplanningMD
Recently, I was engaged in an online discussion about the impact of a name on a brand. The company in question was Radio Shack, which is changing its name to The Shack. Many of the participants argued that the name is a huge component of the brand. With that as a prelude, I offer my response as context to the discussion, and then a response from Peter Russert, president of StealThunder, a brand strategy and brand communications firm. He offers pearls of wisdom.
My post:
I am literally stunned by the posts that have called the named a “huge component” of the brand. Is the name what comes to mind first? Yes. Is it huge? Hardly. Certainly, a horrible name that is offensive or demeaning can derail a brand, but a name will not a brand make. Could Amazon.com have named itself Starbucks.com and had as strong a brand? Could Starbucks have been called Amazon and still dominate this vertical? Yes and yes. History is filled with companies with great names that had lousy brands and companies with great brands that had lousy names. And there are hundreds of examples of companies that renamed themselves without any real impact on the brand itself. You can take any corporate name and, with the right brand positioning strategy, make it a solid brand. The brand makes the name. The name doesn’t make the brand. It’s all about brand integration.
Peter Russert’s reply:
The problem with all these chicken and egg discussions about name and brand, and the ultimate importance of the name, is that brand name and total brand experience quickly fuse together into an inseparable whole. That said, it is a fact of life that the total brand experience ultimately makes any name successful — even the great names. On the other hand, I think it overstates the case to claim that a great name is somehow the beginning of a great brand. Products and value are not built around names. The reverse is true.
That is no excuse to settle for a lame name. Why not create a little bit of poetry that perfectly captures the promise of what you’re selling? Something “sticky,” something to smile at, something inspired? That’s absolutely the strongest position to be in. The worst thing would be to adopt a name that misled an audience about the offering, or “mis-positioned” it. That’s the screen that makes us namers throw away a lot of otherwise good stuff.
But every once in awhile we brand folks need a reality check. As in:
— Scott is right. An awesome product or experience can make even a mediocre name a hero. iPod is nothing special as a name, but it is something I can’t live without. Out of context Prius — well, out of context, I’m not even sure I’d know how to say it. “Pry-us”? It hardly ranks among the great names. But it’s an indisputably great brand. This is so obvious it shouldn’t even need saying.
— On the other hand, no matter how exemplary the name Zima seemed to one respected naming firm, no matter what its linguistic and structural virtues, the product was crap. And so the brand turned to crap. Call it the Zima Rule. A great name does not make a great brand.
— The brand name could be the “first thing I ever hear” about an offering, but do I ever hear it out of context? Has anyone here ever been motivated to explore an otherwise unknown product or service based solely on a name? Doug said: “The right name gets the customer in the store or on the website. We all know the saying: there is only one opportunity to make a good first impression. A name is this opportunity.” Really? Provide an example. Bing? Zune? Palm Pre? Maybe “Free Money” would do it.
As to the original issue, Radio Shack is in a real bind. If someone came to me with a pile of data that told me customers would not accept that a store called “Radio Shack” had anything of relevance for them, I’d have a hell of a hole to climb out of, and not many attractive options. I think the “The Shack” is a dumb mistake. But you have to appreciate the bind they’re in.
On that note, if you were Radio Shack, what would you have done? How would this impact your strategic planning efforts?
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