NAMING

Shakespeare wrote in Romeo and Juliet

O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;

And yet we know from polls and anecdotal evidence that a name can make a huge difference in marketing. For instance any product called “this is a piece of junk” won’t sell and neither will any product with a really long or hard to pronounce name. So there are traditionally three rules of NAMING in marketing.

They are usually abbreviated SRC

1. SHORT

2. ROLL

3. CREATIVE

A variety of jokes surrounding the same pun are often heard when introducing this topic.

Typically it goes something like this

Marketing Professor: what is income?

Student: the financial gain (earned or unearned) accruing over a given period of time

Marketing Professor: and what is the source of your income?

Student: screwing the customer

Marketing Professor: No, selling the customer junk under a different name always remember SRC

Anyway back to the topic at hand

1. The first step is to always remember to keep it short and to make it easy to guess what you are trying to sell.
2. The second step is to make sure the name rolls of the tongue like IPOD or MACBOOK or OS X JAGUAR all fine examples of Roll. Which means that a name should be short but not hard to pronounce. For example “ghungtra” is short but it does not Roll.
3. The third step is to be creative with the way your name is associated to your product. This ensures that people will talk about how you came up with such an idea and creates publicity and memory which is what you always want unless of course its negative memory. A good way to find a creative name is pay attention when people talk about other companies and their names and you will find what key things are attractive and what is not.

Ultimately it is always a good idea to test it out on your friends but to understand that if all they do is critique and have no better suggestions. you either have a really good idea or a not so good idea (to put it nicely).

Marketing

Marketing. What is it? To many people, the consumers, watching TV or searching online, it’s annoying. Yet this word is the crux of American consumerism. How did Steve Jobs sell the ipod? MARKETING! But Steve Jobs wasn’t born a marketing guru he used steps.

There are 5 steps to marketing well
Identify the product/service you sell.
Identify the consumer base for this product or service.
Advertise to this consumer base.
Get noticed by a news release.
Establish brand name recognition by advertising frequently and providing good customer service.
Each step can be broken down with a more detailed explanation.
Step 1 insists that you find a service that you sell and make it the best of its class. Just like Steve Jobs made the ipod the best of its class.
Step 2 is an extension of step 1 and allows you to redefine the service/product for the customer base you want. This also allows you to narrow the places you spend money for step 3. There are companies who advertise higher education for adults on children’s television programming.
Step 3 is the hardest to do. Much ink has been spilt over the subject of advertising.
The problem is that many of the so-called professionals are not themselves marketing gurus and write about the fad of the day without much experience. For instance, one book may tell you that advertising with comedy is very effective, while others will tell you that advertising seriously is more effective. And both may be correct and it depends on the product. For instance, Budweiser commercials are funny and yet they may alienate some consumers who find the comedy to be crude, however Budweiser knows that the target consumer base namely young adults between 21 and 30 will likely not be offended by the comedy of the commercial. On the other hand a bank or a real estate company doing a commercial is more likely to get its audiences attention by being brief and humorless. The product you sell largely defines the audience and that in turn defines the style of the ad. It is also important to never underestimate the power of being annoying in fact sometimes an annoying commercial can be as effective as a humorous commercial. This can than be played to your advantage by making fun of the annoying commercial in the next ad.
Step 4 is a direct extension of step 3 and is a free way to get consumer notoriety. The trick is to call up your local newspaper or news station and attract them to interview you or to do a 2 second clip. The hard part is selling your advertising as news.
Step 5 solely depends on your own skills as a company and who you hire.
Next week we’ll review strategies for coming up with a NAME.

Introduction

Steven Paul Jobs (born February 24, 1955) is the co-founder, Chairman and CEO of Apple Inc, and is the founder of Pixar Animation Studios and was its CEO until it was acquired by the Walt Disney Company in 2006. Jobs is currently the Walt Disney Company's largest individual shareholder and a member of its Board of Directors. He is considered a leading figure in both the computer and entertainment industries. Steve Jobs is listed as Fortune Magazine's most powerful businessman of 2007 out of twenty-five other top businessmen.

Jobs' history in business has contributed greatly to the myths of the quirky, individualistic Silicon Valley entrepreneur, emphasizing the importance of design while understanding the crucial role aesthetics play in public appeal. His work driving forward the development of products that are both functional and elegant has earned him a devoted following.

Together with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Jobs helped popularize the personal computer in the late '70s. In the early '80s, still at Apple, Jobs was among the first to see the commercial potential of the mouse-driven GUI. After losing a power struggle with the board of directors in 1985, Jobs resigned from Apple and founded NeXT, a computer platform development company specializing in the higher education and business markets. NeXT's subsequent 1997 buyout by Apple brought Jobs back to the company he co-founded, and he has served as its chief executive officer since shortly after his return.

(taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_jobs)