3 ms·

What value is there in renaming anything? You've said that out that "Google is a stupid and juvenile-sounding name." but you imply it doesn't matter - so what's

What value is there in renaming anything? You've said that out that "Google is a stupid and juvenile-sounding name." but you imply it doesn't matter - so what's the point? Isn't rebranding what companies do when they run out of ideas (one of my old employers changed its name at least 3 times because... why? I doubt they have a viable product yet. A name change isn't going to help).

austhrow743 7y ago
To run from a bad reputation To expand in to a market that already has a well known company by that name Hard to rank for it for search purposes Brand is about a specific niche that you want to expand out of
- ghaff 7y ago
  There are various types of rebranding that may or may not involve renaming. However, with respect to renaming specifically, it often also comes about because your company name now bears no relationship to what you actually do. To take a random example from a past life, NL Industries used to be the Nation Lead Company but, while they still have some involvement in pigments, they don't actually do anything related to lead any more AFAIK. (This is a major reason companies switch from a descriptive name to just some letters.)
  - throwaway_pdp09 7y ago
    After the renaming you mentioned of NL, was there any lasting measurable business effect such as change in turnover, profit, new customers, anything at all?
    - ghaff 7y ago
      I have no idea. They did it decades ago. I will say that it's easy to say that none of this stuff matters at all. And it's very hard to quantify among a zillion other variables. Is it crucial in the grand scheme of things? Probably not. But things like brand awareness and brand perception can matter--at least at the margins.
adriand 7y ago
> What value is there in renaming anything? You've said that out that "Google is a stupid and juvenile-sounding name." but you imply it doesn't matter - so what's the point? To be clear, my sentence was slightly syntactically incorrect: what I meant was, "Google is a stupid- and juvenile-sounding name." It's not a stupid name, but it is stupid-sounding, at least until you get used to it. But it's far from a stupid name. For instance: it's spelled the way it sounds, it's memorable, and it sounds like a verb. Those are all pluses, and yes, they matter. I once worked for a company called Internet Enterprises. Terrible name. It sounds like a shell company with dusty offices on a service road off a highway. I once owned a design agency called factor[e] design initiative (I didn't found it or name it). Poor brand story: the "e" was chosen because at the time (late 90s) "e" was like "i" from a few years ago. No other good reason. It was spelled all lower-case, like e. e. cummings (annoying for a company). It had weird punctuation marks in it. And how do you pronounce it? I would commonly hear "factory" or "factor-E" (correct). I used to joke it was "fac-TOR-ay" (say that with an Italian accent). A few years in, we rebranded to Parallel. Much better: regular spelling and capitalization, dictionary word and a good brand story (alignment / working "in parallel" with clients, etc.) At times, in conversations with clients, they would inadvertently use the brand: "We'd like to work in parallel with you..." This stuff matters—a lot! It's easier to attract customers and employees with a great brand. And the brand provides a consistent touch point - a "north star" if you will - for what the company stands for.
jkrems 7y ago
Pure speculation but: "Zeit" is a super common German word. So if you want to protect your brand internationally but there's a major newspaper in one of the biggest economies that is also called exactly "Zeit" - that's kind of bad. Vercel is much more unique. You can't get https://twitter.com/zeit https://twitter.com/zeit because it's the newspaper. You can't get zeit.de because it's the newspaper. You could get zeit.com but you'd compete with the newspaper for it. Picking a brand that doesn't have as much baggage could be convenient down the line.
grawprog 7y ago
>Isn't rebranding what companies do when they run out of ideas (one of my old employers changed its name at least 3 times because... why? This is what I figure. That or they want people to forget about lousy things they've done. Dunno if it was ever true, but hearing the rumour that Kentucky fried chicken switched to KFC to avoid being associated with fried chicken and the health issues surrounding trans fats that were a big deal at the time sort of stuck with me. Personally, I'd trust the company that's kept the same boring name for a decade over one that's renamed themselves several times in the same period.

austhrow743 7y ago

To run from a bad reputation To expand in to a market that already has a well known company by that name Hard to rank for it for search purposes Brand is about a specific niche that you want to expand out of

ghaff 7y ago
There are various types of rebranding that may or may not involve renaming. However, with respect to renaming specifically, it often also comes about because your company name now bears no relationship to what you actually do. To take a random example from a past life, NL Industries used to be the Nation Lead Company but, while they still have some involvement in pigments, they don't actually do anything related to lead any more AFAIK. (This is a major reason companies switch from a descriptive name to just some letters.)
- throwaway_pdp09 7y ago
  After the renaming you mentioned of NL, was there any lasting measurable business effect such as change in turnover, profit, new customers, anything at all?
  - ghaff 7y ago
    I have no idea. They did it decades ago. I will say that it's easy to say that none of this stuff matters at all. And it's very hard to quantify among a zillion other variables. Is it crucial in the grand scheme of things? Probably not. But things like brand awareness and brand perception can matter--at least at the margins.

adriand 7y ago

> What value is there in renaming anything? You've said that out that "Google is a stupid and juvenile-sounding name." but you imply it doesn't matter - so what's the point? To be clear, my sentence was slightly syntactically incorrect: what I meant was, "Google is a stupid- and juvenile-sounding name." It's not a stupid name, but it is stupid-sounding, at least until you get used to it. But it's far from a stupid name. For instance: it's spelled the way it sounds, it's memorable, and it sounds like a verb. Those are all pluses, and yes, they matter. I once worked for a company called Internet Enterprises. Terrible name. It sounds like a shell company with dusty offices on a service road off a highway. I once owned a design agency called factor[e] design initiative (I didn't found it or name it). Poor brand story: the "e" was chosen because at the time (late 90s) "e" was like "i" from a few years ago. No other good reason. It was spelled all lower-case, like e. e. cummings (annoying for a company). It had weird punctuation marks in it. And how do you pronounce it? I would commonly hear "factory" or "factor-E" (correct). I used to joke it was "fac-TOR-ay" (say that with an Italian accent). A few years in, we rebranded to Parallel. Much better: regular spelling and capitalization, dictionary word and a good brand story (alignment / working "in parallel" with clients, etc.) At times, in conversations with clients, they would inadvertently use the brand: "We'd like to work in parallel with you..." This stuff matters—a lot! It's easier to attract customers and employees with a great brand. And the brand provides a consistent touch point - a "north star" if you will - for what the company stands for.

jkrems 7y ago

Pure speculation but: "Zeit" is a super common German word. So if you want to protect your brand internationally but there's a major newspaper in one of the biggest economies that is also called exactly "Zeit" - that's kind of bad. Vercel is much more unique. You can't get https://twitter.com/zeit https://twitter.com/zeit because it's the newspaper. You can't get zeit.de because it's the newspaper. You could get zeit.com but you'd compete with the newspaper for it. Picking a brand that doesn't have as much baggage could be convenient down the line.

grawprog 7y ago

>Isn't rebranding what companies do when they run out of ideas (one of my old employers changed its name at least 3 times because... why? This is what I figure. That or they want people to forget about lousy things they've done. Dunno if it was ever true, but hearing the rumour that Kentucky fried chicken switched to KFC to avoid being associated with fried chicken and the health issues surrounding trans fats that were a big deal at the time sort of stuck with me. Personally, I'd trust the company that's kept the same boring name for a decade over one that's renamed themselves several times in the same period.