I’ve devoted a large section to product names in my upcoming book, Evangelist Marketing, but I still can’t understand why so many technology companies commit marketing suicide with a horrible device name. If your product name has multiple words, or you lead with an 18 character model number, you are making it phyically impossible for consumers to remember, talk about, and evangelize your product.
Ask somebody if they can tell you exactly which model of television they own. Or which digital camera or laptop. They won’t tell you because they can’t — because the manufacturers have made it impossible to do so.
So: the iPod, iPhone, iPad, and Mac are some of the most evangelized products on the market today. The Walkman, TiVo, and Palm are some of the most successful products of the last 20 years. What do they have in common?
They are short, crisp, sticky, easy to remember, and easy to evangelize. Even differentiating between models is easy: The iPad 2, the Palm V, the TiVo Premiere.
Our business is difficult enough. Don’t erect your own roadblocks. Help people talk about your products with a simple, short, powerful product name.
These weekly thinking launch points are called “Minutes” because they will always be short enough to read in about 60 seconds.
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