in the early stage of starting a business, one of the most important things to do is to name your product. A good name can open the market faster and at lower cost, make people remember it, and eventually become a strong brand. How to give a good name to your products scientifically? This article gives you the answer.

in the early stage of starting a business, one of the most important things to do is to name your product. A good name can open the market faster and at lower cost, make people remember it, and eventually become a strong brand.

I believe that every entrepreneur has this experience. At the beginning, he always thought that he would be able to think of a perfect name for his product, so he racked his brains in the whole process and used up all his life's learning.

But the reality is often: deadline is coming, and the hundreds of names I thought of have not reached the perfect one I expected. I always feel that there may be something missing, but I don't know what's wrong. In the end, I have no choice but to choose a hard one.

Not all teams can have the moment when they feel incredibly firm "This is it" like "Zhihu".

The naming thing has tortured us for a long time. From the beginning, everyone wanted to find a perfect name, and the process of achieving this goal was painful.

At first, we all focused our thinking on asking and answering. Around these two words, we came up with more than 1,111 decent names, such as asking things, asking questions, asking loudly, etc. The idea is to encourage behavior. If you have any questions, then say hello. However, all these names are a little neither too painful nor too exciting. Of course, we also engaged in some formalism, trying to set a deadline and then forcing all the names to be graded and sorted, but failed.

and then one day.

On September 3rd, after 6 pm, I was looking for dinner in Sanlitun. A short message from Sean, the cheerleader of the Zhihu team, jumped into my mobile phone: "What about the word" knowing "? "A few minutes later, his second message jumped in again:" Zhihu. com? After the name hovered in my mind for a few hours, I sent a short message to everyone with only two words "Zhihu" on it.

that's how Zhihu came.

when our team chose the name, it also went through all the above processes. A name was suppressed for a long time, which was very painful. We consulted a lot of relevant materials, but they were scattered and not systematic.

the biggest feeling after choosing a name is: from a business point of view, there must be no so-called perfect name, and a good name must be the most suitable for your own direction.

I am writing this article to sort out my thoughts in the whole process of naming, so that it can be a reference for naming methods and provide more dimensional ideas and criteria for naming.

I will talk about how to choose a name from the top analysis of the nature of the name to the landing. The article is a little long, and there may be logical loopholes in the content. I will slowly supplement and improve it later.

First, the meaning of the name

"In some people's vocabulary, design is equivalent to decoration, to interior decoration, and to the materials used for sofas and curtains. But for me, design means something completely different. Design is the soul of all "man-made objects". It expresses the meaning of the existence of this object through layers of external appearances. Steve Jobs

In the whole process, I have been thinking about: what is the meaning of the existence of names, why everyone should have a name, why everything should have a name, and what is the name. Thinking from these angles, we can find more possibilities:

Tell others through different media (language, words and images) so that others can relate to their cognition

The existence of a name can only be told to others through the media, and after telling others, others will automatically associate the name with the things behind his cognition.

Give me a chestnut: Introduce myself in public (through language): My name is Radish Superman, and I am an entrepreneur. Nice to meet you. So in the cognition of the listener, there is an instinctive connection: radish superman = his cognition (image cognition: looks good. Language cognition: Very capable in speaking. What you told him about his cognition: an entrepreneur has potential and momentum, and will ask him for a WeChat later.

So, in the following period of time, he will associate the name with something in his cognition and make some subjective judgments. The more he knows about the object represented by this name, the more related things will be. The name is the sum of all the related cognition in his mind, and it can also be said that the name is a signal to arouse the cognition of his brain.

recalled at certain moments

After the first cognitive association with a name, the name may not always exist in his mind until some of his demands are aroused, and he will look for ways to solve the demands. If there is something related to solving the demands, the name will be recalled.

Let's give a chestnut: If one of your friends is a designer, when you need to design something, you will naturally think of this friend, then recall his name, and then search for him. His name was revived when you needed design support, because his name contains the attribute of design in your cognition.

Second, what is a good name?

It is much easier to backward push according to the existing meaning and business rules. I have summed up two points:

It is easy to remember, and it can be kept for a long time.

Most people have the experience of memorizing English words. you will fine that rote memorization is very painful, but there are two types of words that are easy to remember.

1. Therefore, many brands are named in this way, using as few words as possible, such as "Mo Mo", "Zhuan", "QQ" and "YY", all of which only use 1 words.

2. There are many ways to create associations that can be associated with other cognitive creations. For example, pregnant, if you associate it as "pouncing on a man", just remember it. Or you know the word bug, and the prefix of de- stands for reduction, so you can remember the word debug without memorizing it.

So many brands have created many associations in their names to facilitate memory, especially using concrete images. For example, "QQ" is afraid that you can't even remember a Q, and uses penguins as associations. Now when you see penguins, your first reaction may not be animals, but "QQ". "Where to go" is related to camels, and "Ctrip" is related to dolphins. Many times you can remember his name through concrete images, which is why many brands are either animal or plant.

In addition to a basic image, slogon, advertisements and other promotional materials often serve to create more memorable associations for this name.

The value behind the object of the name is clear

Just remembering the name doesn't mean anything to a product. As the meaning of the existence of a name says, a name must be revived at some point to be valuable.

For example, when you want to buy clothes or small things, and you are not so sensitive to buying fakes or after-sales, you may go to Taobao. When you want to buy something right away and care about its quality, you may go to JD.COM, which is also an e-commerce platform, but their demands are different.

Of course, it is not enough to build the value behind the name. All marketing activities of enterprises are actually to strengthen the value and positioning behind the name, but if the name cannot convey or cover the value it conveys, there will be great problems.

If "JD.COM" is called "Magic Department Store" at first, it means that he needs to pay more marketing costs to change other people's perceptions of "magic" and make "magic" become a reliable and professional synonym. Obviously, this is basically impossible. Don't try to change other people's perceptions of existing things.

why did I say that there is no perfect name, because the perfect name must have both the differentiated value (recognition) and the functional value, but the fact is that all names balance the differentiated value and the functional value.

too much emphasis on differentiated value will inevitably weaken functional value, and vice versa. Please remember this sentence first and I will expand it a little later. People's cognition is limited, and the number of words in a name is also limited. Simple things are often the most complicated. As for how to balance them, we need to think from scratch to design a name and find this balance.

Third, design a name

Design a name like a product, instead of thinking wildly. The whole design process can be divided into four steps:

1. In-depth analysis of users and industries to determine brand positioning

2. War between functional value and differentiated value

3. Quantitative change to qualitative change

4. Re-examine

in-depth analysis of users and industries to determine brand positioning

Zhihu V "Papman" divided the product into four levels. What is the essence of your product?

What are the unique selling points of the product itself?

What are the extended services of the product?

What are your products in the users' psychological cognition?

Psychological products are brands, which meet the needs, while brands meet the desires, while names are the literal expressions of brands. That means you must clearly understand what the brand positioning is before you think about the name.

determine the brand positioning

brand positioning is three strands of rope, and when the three strands of rope are twisted together, it comes out. So which three strands of rope are there?

The first strand: What consumers' desires in the industry have not been met?

The second strand: Have competitors met?

The third strand: How do we meet

What we need to know is that desires may be in actual products in the industry.

Desire is a scene: it is the consumer's expectation and fantasy about your product, imagining what will happen after he owns your product.

for example

the first rope: the behavior of sending flowers belongs to social behavior. If we want to find the pain point in the physical product of flowers and solve the problems such as styles and types, then we will go astray. Sending flowers is to close the psychological distance between two people, and flowers carry emotions.

"Fauvism" sees the boredom and formality in the process of sending flowers, so it creates a story for each bunch of flowers, so that you can better use this bunch of flowers to reflect your taste and high social value (pretending).

"Roseonly" sees the pursuit and commitment of devoted love between lovers during their passionate love, so when buying flowers, you must register the ID numbers of both parties and tell the flower buyer that you have made up your mind. If you want to give "Rose Only" in your life, you can only give it to this person.

For Pixel Apartment, what I see is the indifference of roommates in shared apartment. When I get home, I shut myself up in my room, like a stranger under the same roof. But in fact, everyone doesn't want this, and many times it's just because of embarrassment.

the second rope: be sure to understand how competitors do it, especially if the giants are also in your industry.

The third rope: Fauvism is a story creation, and Roseonly is a creation ceremony. Both the story and the ceremony have become a part of their products and can be done.

The "pixel apartment" is made in four steps, so I won't elaborate on it. Simply put, it is:

1. Classification of tenants, so that people with the same attributes can live together more appropriately.

2. Create an environment. We have put a lot of thought into the construction of public areas to make tenants more willing to stay in public areas.

3. Tenants break the ice. Let's introduce them as intermediaries to break the embarrassment.

4. Tenant APP, which enables tenants to interact online

5. Offline activities, which enables tenants to really play and become friends.

The brand we want to build is that tenants see the "pixel apartment" and associate it with a room full of people playing games, watching movies, cooking and other social life scenes. Everything is done around increasing the possibility of this scene, and it is also possible for us to do it. As soon as the three strands of rope are twisted, the brand positioning comes out, and the direction of the product is also available, which is a step closer to the name.

the war between functional value and differentiated value

I want to explain the recognition first: recognition = differentiated value embodiment, so what is the difference between differentiated value embodiment and functional value embodiment.

For example, "Enjoy" does high-end group buying, while "Meituan" does ordinary group buying. Obviously, from the name, "Meituan" is a group buyer (functional value embodiment) and clearly knows what he does. And "Enjoy" you don't know just by looking at the name, but what kind of feeling does it convey to you? A feeling of being slightly forced, which I think can be called the embodiment of differentiated value. Compared with other group purchases, it has recognition and more embodies the value of differentiation.

as for how to balance, it depends on specific industry analysis, but basically three rules can be summarized

1. When the market knowledge is early (there are few competitors and the audience's cognition is unclear), what you do (the embodiment of functional value) is more important than the embodiment of differentiated value. When the market develops to the stage of full competition, what is different between you and others (the embodiment of differentiated value) is more important than the embodiment of functional value

When what is the scarcity of this industry, what should be reflected in the name, this scarcity is also the place where the three strands of rope are tied.

2. The higher the frequency of product use or purchase, the more important the differentiated value is. The lower the frequency of product use or purchase, the more important the functional value is.

For high-frequency products, the higher the differentiated value, the more users will choose you because you are different, and they will not feel that all of them are the same and become disloyal. For low-frequency products, it is more important to let users know what you do and what advantages you have.

3. It is more important to embody the differentiated value of products that rely on communication, and it is more important to embody the functional value of products that rely on sales without communication.

No one wants to spread something that can't show superiority without coercion, so it is more important to embody the differentiated value of products that rely on communication, but less important to traditional sales products that don't rely on communication.

from quantitative change to qualitative change

the previous question is not clear enough to get a name. In previous projects, many methods have been tried, including crowdsourcing and mobilizing all the people who can influence to make suggestions for names. Facts have proved that giving the name to people who don't understand the brand positioning is right and wrong.