The company grows by bringing out the best in its product. Every time a research and development team comes up with the innovative product, the brand managers have to decide on what to name that ‘new’ product.
For example, a cement manufacturing company came up with an innovative cement that provides extremely smooth surface. Before introducing it into the market, brand managers need to be decide what to name the product. Is it fine to extend the name just as ‘new ultra smooth cement from…’? Or should it be given a name that can stand as a brand in itself later?
Brand name is the mightiest form of its identity. It tells the objective of the program and reveals brand intentions. Some brand names and products apparently seem irrelevant.
As in case of ‘Apple’, the microcomputers brand, Steve Jobs and the co-founder Steve Wozniak chose this name with the logo of a munched apple as they intended to give a new look to the conventional human-machine relationship. The apple logo tells that a computer machine is something to enjoy, rather than to fear about. Similarly, Amazon logo with a directed arrow from a-to-z depicts range, continuity, strength, and uninterrupted flow.
Thus, to make a strong brand, almost any name can be chosen, with the fact that the brand managers need to put consistent efforts in making the brand name meaningful.
Brand name is not a product. Hence while selecting brand name for a new product, the names which differentiate the product among its competitors must be chosen instead of those that describe what the product does.
Group and Corporate Brands
Instead of working behind a logo or a brand name, the companies have started coming up as brands themselves called corporate brands. They are choosing to become as widely visible as possible out of the consumer’s demand of responsibility and transparency.
By presenting itself under corporate brand profile, the companies can attract students and executives in the employment market. In Asia, at the end of Procter and Gamble television ad, company signature is displayed for a few seconds as it is already visible and established as a corporate brand. In the US the P&G experience is different and it needs efforts to make itself more visible.
Corporate Brands over Product Brands
Few companies have preferred to keep their own names separate from their brand names for the reason of getting affected in case of brand failure. There are other reasons of corporate visibility over product visibility. The multi-brand retailers, hyper chains are interested in corporate visibility of a company rather than product brands they sell as their basic B2B relation is with companies and not with brands.
