A brand by any other name...
| If anecdotes like the one above are what you look for in corporate and brand histories, Brand Names and Product Dynasties should be right up your street. In a little over 200 pages, Barrie Blake Coleman hurries you through just as many brandnames "" the stories behind their origins and development, the thought (or lack of it) that went into selecting what went on to become household names and even some heavy, academic discussion on onomastics (the science of names). While many are rather directly named after their founders (Guinness, Lipton, Gillette, Hoover...), others are descriptive (Timex Timepieces), emotive (Sunlight, Brilliant) or just blends (Microsoft, Palmolive, Sony...) |
| Advertising one's wares is an old, old business: there were endorsements even at Pompeii, while printed advertising goes back to the early 17th century. Not everyone tom-tommed the benefits of their product in magazines and newspapers, though "" walk through old English and American graveyards, and you are likely to come across tombstones like the one that mourned John Roberts, stonemason and stonecutter, but was quick to reassure that business as usual was being continued by his widow, at No.1, Freshfield Place. |
| Of course, initiating consumer interest through advertising is only part of the story, Coleman says. You need to harden that interest by emphasising your product's superiority, and then work towards making those customers loyal. That's where the brandname comes in "" named, packaged and presented properly, the product "can give all the visual indicators and stimuli needed to endorse the consumer's previous decision to buy". |
| And while strategic branding is considered a science, Coleman points out that only 5 per cent of the 16,000 new brandnames that appear in the US every year are completely new. The rest are just variations on existing names. Even the 800 or so "brand new" names don't have a promising future "" about half of them will fade out in under a year. |
| So if you are in the branding business, it would probably pay to understand just why some brandnames clicked, while others turned out to be lemons. But you won't find that kind of detail in this book "" or, at least, not enough. What Brand Names and Product Dynasties offers is a fascinating glimpse into the thought processes that shaped many superbrands' destinies and the accidents of fate and instincts that led to certain choices "" but not nearly sufficient analysis of the consequences of these actions, or why available alternatives were not selected. |
| With one notable exception. Coleman seems to have liked the Kodak story so much, he's referred to it in detail not once, but twice. George Eastman liked the letter K so much, he tried out different words that ended and began with the letter. The result was Kodak. Eastman's own explanation for his choice was that K was a "strong and incisive sort of letter". Coleman explains in more detail. "K" is an expletive consonant and "Kodak" is a quasi-palindrome structure "" a short, symmetrical, usually coined word with an inherent vocal balance "" one of the six categories Coleman mentions for successful brand names. Following that line of reasoning, he concludes that the photographic company may have been just as successful had Eastman opted for "Codac". Hmm ... I wonder. |
| Incidentally, I don't think Coleman could have had much to do with the naming of his book. Brand Names and Product Dynasties is just too prosaic and stodgy-sounding to be the choice of someone who holds 14 world patents and now, according to his biography at the end, writes "innovative fiction". And considering he's written a whole tome on how some of the world's best brands came by their names, you would think Coleman would have given a little more thought to picking a title for this work. |
| BRAND NAMES AND PRODUCT DYNASTIES LESSONS IN RETROSPECT |
| Barrie Blake Coleman Westland Pages: 212; Price: Rs 195 |