BUSINESS

Today, no matter how big or small the name-identity, it must face some of the principle Laws of Corporate Naming to cope with brand new challenges of corporate-sobriety.

Laws of Respectability

A corporate image and its name must offer a credible personality to its customers and shareholders alike; unless a corporate name is for a circus, the customers are seeking value and shareholders protection of their assets and neither seeking a monkey show.

A business name of any serious enterprise must have an alpha-character to qualify and gain respect projecting sound personality, honesty, integrity, reliability and stability. No room for randomly picked wild names Globe-a-Con, Bluetower, Tomorrow Inc, Guarantee Inc or just Omelet Cute, pretentious or humorous names are out. Difficult and obscure names only confuse customers. Looks-alike or sounds-alike names only kill marketing efforts.  Twisted spellings hurt search-ability. With major bankruptcies all over the other innocent businesses with similar names are getting trapped. 

Currently amongst the modernized world the credibility of financial services has gone to the bottom, as false claims to exotic superiority failed to match the unexplainable performance. So are the related sectors, impacting doubts about everything and gone are the so cherished and respected images of the past corporate identities of the past from hard core manufacturing to incredible services. Where and when will all this train stop? 

Last decade, as an example, most banks simply adapted the initialization of their long twisted names and clearly short-changed themselves by eliminating any distinct identity or a respectable image. The analysis of the top 1000 banks of the world is nothing but the most thick, creamy alphabet soup one can dip into. Almost all of them suddenly decided in unison to simply just become initially named banks and now they are all just a bank, falling and crumbling under the stress tests. If ever when the next round of a run on a major American or British bank would occur it will cause havocs for the other hundreds of innocent financial institutions which are still holding a very clean and sober affairs. 

Whether the board likes it or not most corporate boardrooms are extremely scared to open a debate on this name image issue while this meltdown is taking this name identity crisis to the very top. A survey of major corporations around the world shows 87% of corporate names are seriously identical to other business names causing confusion and losing name-equity in the marketplace. The sooner they address this, the better. 

For those genuine, honest and progressive corporations of the real economy armed with realistic goals; there are still a lot of new opportunities to stay clear of these corrupt, polluted and damaged name identities. Seek out professionally prepared “Name Evaluation Report” now available online via the internet to assess your national or global marketing needs and make sure that your names are honestly projecting your strengths and can pass the acid test of trustworthiness and exclusive ownership. 

The change is always painful, but this global frenzy provides the best time to create a solid global scale strategy. Bad names will kill the business eventually and no amount of advertising will save it, guaranteed. A professional non-partial name-evaluation-report is also the fastest and the cheapest way to know exactly where the promotional monies are being wasted and where the future of your name-identity is really headed. Play by the rules, follow the laws and avoid the flames.

[Naseem Javed is a widely recognized world-authority on corporate nomenclature and global image issues. Author of Naming for Power, Naseem founded ABC Namebank some 30 years ago in Toronto and New York, and introduced The Laws of Corporate Naming, a quarter century ago. He is currently is lecturing on global cyber branding and the new ICANN platform. His website is: www.abcnamebank.com. He can be reached @ nj@njabc.com .]