Posts Tagged Marcia Yudkin
Crowdsourcing: Three Ways You Can Find a Great New Company or Product Name Free or at Low Cost
Increasingly popular, “crowdsourcing” involves inviting a large number of people to perform a task, with a prize promised to the person or team whose work is selected as the winner. Specialized web sites now exist where you can ask people to compete by creating designs for T-shirts, logos or ads. Not long ago, crowdsourcing was [...]
Read moreFour Warnings Regarding a Foreign-Sounding (or Foreign-Looking) New Business Name
In 1915, California farmers banded together to rename the ahuacate, a pear-shaped fruit with pebbly skin and an oversized pit inside. They knew this Aztec word was hard for Americans to pronounce, and the Spanish version of the name, aguacate, was just as difficult for them. The new made-up name they agreed upon, avocado, sounds [...]
Read moreFive Ways to Make Your Company Slogan Catchy or Your Tag Line Terrific
Whether you call it a company slogan, a tag line, a strapline, a logline, a branding statement, a positioning statement, a motto or a memory hook, this refers to a phrase that follows the company name in website headers, in print ads, on business cards and everywhere else. Ideally, the slogan should say something interesting [...]
Read moreA Company Catchphrase: Creating a Motto or Slogan That Promotes Your Business
“Reach out and touch someone.” “The ultimate driving machine.” “Finger lickin’ good.” Chances are, you not only know immediately that those slogans come from AT&T, BMW and KFC, in that order. Those catchphrases may also very well have persuaded someone you know to place more long-distance calls, purchase a particular brand of car and decide [...]
Read moreYour New Business Name: Three Problems That Could Spell Trouble
When I interviewed a gardening specialist years ago for a story unrelated to gardening, she used a phrase to illustrate one of her points that I just couldn’t understand. It sounded like “squash vine bores,” and I had to ask her to repeat it three times because I couldn’t settle the unfamiliar sounds in “vine [...]
Read moreNaming Your Business: Five Hidden Pittfalls of Using Creative Spelling in Your New Company Name
If you’ve ever run across the old joke that “fish” should actually be spelled “ghoti” (“gh” as in “tough,” “o” as in “women” and “ti” as in “nation”), then you won’t be surprised to know that many companies put this quirk of the English language to work by concocting an alternate spelling of a key [...]
Read moreCrowdsourcing: 9 Hidden Pitfalls of This New Method of Generating Your New Business Name
Want to get a spiffy new company name or product name fast, at low cost? A lot of Internet-savvy people are looking into a method of finding new names called “crowdsourcing.” Actually, there are three methods that fall into that category, with one of them at least decades old, another one as about new as [...]
Read moreCompany or Product Naming: 7 Ways to Add Pizzazz to a Boring Business Name
You’re starting a new company, launching a new product or trying to inject pizzazz into an existing company or product that seems way too boring and ordinary. Try these 7 techniques to shape the basic facts about your business into a name with energy and zing. The examples we’ll use to illustrate the techniques are [...]
Read moreWhat Science Says About Selecting the Best Business Name for Your Company
High-priced branding consultants who huddle together for months to concoct a new company name would like the public to think that effective naming involves secrets revealed only to those who earned a Ph.D. in linguistics, speak 17 languages or learned advertising through working their way up the ranks at a famous-brand agency. If you turn [...]
Read moreFrequent Mistake #3 While Naming a New Company or New Product
“Your business name must be bold.” Look around the Internet, and you’ll often find this advice. Your business name must grab people’s attention. Sometimes this is a valid guideline, especially if you are in the entertainment, gadget or fashion industries. Too often, however, I see this rule lead business owners to strain for an unusual [...]
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