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3 reasons to avoid descriptive names for your new brand

3-reasons-to-avoid-descriptive-names-for-your-new-brand

The first temptation when you have to name a new brand is to think about a descriptive name. Usually, you choose a general competitive advantage which you feel that describes the best your product or service. And then you attach this advantage to a common noun.

Examples?

If you are in the delivery service, you will choose “fast”.

If you are in the food area, you will choose “tasty”.

If you are in the Internet business, you will choose “online”.

If you are in the clothing industry, you will choose “fashion”.

If you are in the medical zone, you will choose “healthy”

We can give you thousands of examples of descriptive names that are similar with each other. All the brands wish to make the customers believe that they are the fastest, the tastiest, the best, the cheapest, the exclusivist and the most premium brand ever.

At the first sight, it seems that a descriptive name for your brand will help you to save a lot of money. We are sure that you are advised to choose this type of name and the reasons are:

  • With a descriptive name you won’t have to tell to your customers what you do. They will figure it out right away.
  • Neither you have to promote your competitive advantage because is already included in the name.
  • Invented names are difficult to pronounce and to be memorized. A descriptive name is really easy remembered.

We will surprise you a little now, but we have to confess that they are right. Until some point…

And now we will share you the main three reasons that should make you reconsider this decision.

  1. It’s cheaper to promote a descriptive name…in the first year. Maximum.

Indeed, maybe you will invest less in promoting a descriptive brand name when you start a business. Because your potential customers will know right away what your business does. But have you ever wondered how easy is to promote a restaurant named “Tasty Burgers” in a world full of other “tasty burgers”? After a few months you will start to spend a lot of money on advertising in order to recover this naming damage. You will have to differentiate yourself from your competitors and for sure, that will cost you a lot more than a more creative brand name.

  1. How possible do you imagine it may be to register “Tasty Burgers” as a trademark?

Usually, descriptive names are “cursed” to be unavailable for trademark registration. Due to the fact that this type of names contain common used nouns and adjectives, it’s impossible to legally protect your mark. Maybe you think that it’s not so important so register your name as a trademark, but let’s imagine how would you feel ten years from now after you have a strong reputation and your market and any newcomer can use your brand name to promote his business?

  1. It seems easy to remember a descriptive name. That’s true. But it’s really difficult to differentiate one of them from a crowd of similar names.

Even if a descriptive name makes you win some points at the memorizing aspect, at differentiation wins 0 points. How easy is to remember how many “Tasty Burgers” restaurants are in your town? Due to this confusion, you will start lose clients in favor of your competitors, just because…they are not able to remember which restaurant has the most “tasty burger” in the area.

Do you have a naming project in mind? Let’s have a discussion about invented, suggestive, arbitrary and hybrid names. It may help you a lot in the future. Write us more about your future brand here: https://www.namzya.com/get-quote.html

 

You can follow us on Linkedin and Instagram to see the most recent updates from our work and our wonderful business trips! 

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Marcela and Andra                                      Marcela and Andra

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