My curiosity was piqued by the headline of a recent article comparing Siri, the personal assistant application on new iPhones, to Speaktoit, currently available on Android phones – but not because I wanted to understand the differences between the apps.  I was struck by how different the two names are – Siri:  short, cute, a person’s name, vs. Speaktoit:  longer, cumbersome, a function.

I got to thinking about what makes a brand name effective and how that’s changed over time.  As I’ve dug into the trends, I’ve discovered how brand names reflect the business climates they’re developed in – and how understanding the relationship between the two can help people develop effective brand names in these modern times.

In the past, brand names have served as labels for companies, products, or services.  The role of name-as-label is description and the purpose is primarily to instill confidence.  That’s why founders’ names (e.g., Disney, McDonald’s, Hewlett-Packard) and functional names (e.g., Burger King, IBM, Weight Watchers) have been popular.  The names tell people either what the company/product/service is, or what it does, or who’s behind it.  Names as labels are about consumer risk-reduction.

But in today’s marketplace, it seems brand names need to do more than that.  Modern names need to stand out, draw people in, and inspire their imaginations.  These days the most effective brand names don’t serve as labels – they’re more like identities.  They declare instead of describe, convey personality instead of confidence.  That’s why we see names like Jack for radio stations, Freebirds for restaurants, and Zappos for e-tailers.  These names as identities are about consumer attraction.

Which brings me back to Siri vs. Speaktoit.  The name Siri is derived from the SRI International Artificial Intelligence Center which developed the technology that powers the application.  Fortunately the founders were prescient enough to understand the technology’s potential and adapted the center’s name into woman’s name instead of forming it as an acronym.  An actual person’s name makes the application seem personal and approachable — the precise attributes the technology needs to attract people and generate trial.

The name Speaktoit Assistant, however, seems pedantic.  While the name clearly describes the technology, its descriptive nature genericizes the product.  It emphasizes what the user can do vs. suggests how the user will feel.  The potential of the technology seems more limited with a functional name and the name almost begs for copycats (I’m sure plans for Talktome, SayIt, and JustSpeak are already in the works.)

And that’s really the point.  An effective brand name conveys – or at least evokes – differentiation.  And while differentiation has long been an important part of brand-building, in most categories today, differentiation is achieved less with features and functions and more through values and personality.  The former are easily and quickly copied and commoditized; the latter, less so.  Modern brand names need to tap into the differentiating power of values and personality.

An effective brand name also supports the primary marketing task, so modern brand names should facilitate the marketing task of today’s market.  Companies have and always will need to assure customers of the brand quality in order to reduce the perceived risks of purchase – but now that is achieved less by promotion and more by identification.  Modern consumers trust brands that demonstrate interest in them and the things they care about – they’re attracted by the sense of affinity.  So marketers should select names that facilitate this connection through identity.

There are two other factors to consider. First, salience. With the growing number of competitors and the shrinking size of screens – not to mention attention spans – the need for salient brand names is greater now than ever before.  Short, pithy names stand out quickly.

Second, if ICANN’s push to add as many as 1,000 new top-level domains is accepted (and it’s looking increasingly like it will), descriptive names will become even less important.  No longer will a company need to spell out that it’s an eating establishment if it can use the “.restaurant”  or “.eat” domain.  So marketers will enjoy more freedom when selecting modern brand names.

Brand names are an interesting sign of the times.  And it’s clear, it’s a brand new world out there (pun intended.)

related posts:

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• fundamentals of brand naming

Yesterday’s New York Times’ article, Apple’s Game Changer, Downloading Now, was a fascinating read.  I’m not knowledgeable enough about the technology behind mobile apps to evaluate the story as a representation of the programming and development challenges and opportunities of all the different companies.  But I found it a provocative report on the different brands’ strategies.

Apple/iphone as curator

First, there’s Apple.  Actually the primary point of the piece was Apple’s approach to approving – or in some cases, not approving – applications for inclusion in its app store. “The company places high value on what it describes as ‘customer trust,’ or the idea that users have faith that an application distributed on the iPhone won’t crash the platform, steal personal information or contain illegal content,” the article reports.

As such, it utilizes an approval process that some developers criticize for being opaque, arbitrary, and/or slow.  Nonetheless, the process positions the Apple brand as a screen for quality.  It also adds to the brand’s cachet, because developers of all sizes and scale are able to submit their apps for consideration and those that make it through seem to have a cool factor that Apple has bestowed upon them.

From a brand point of view, this is a smart strategy.  The role of the brand as editor or curator has always been important in sectors like retail and media, but it is becoming more prevalent in other areas now.  By endorsing another company’s product, a brand builds its own equity as an arbiter of what is good.  The brand becomes less about what it makes and more about what it does – a position that’s inherently more valuable (I posted about this last year when Apple’s app store was just starting to take off.)

The approach does have its downsides as well.  It leaves a brand vulnerable to forces out of the company’s control.  If an app from the Apple app store has quality problems, there’s a chance it could tarnish the Apple brand.  The strategy can also bring a backlash if the brand’s editing is perceived as too subjective or exclusive.  The NYT piece relayed the stories of several developers who were frustrated with Apple’s process.  Philip W. Schiller, head of worldwide product marketing at Apple admits, “Sometimes we make a judgment call both ways, that people give us feedback on, either rejecting something that perhaps on second consideration shouldn’t be, or accepting something that on second consideration shouldn’t be.”

RIM/Blackberry as leading innovator

The article also reported on Research In Motion, which is focused on the utility of the apps it makes available to Blackberry users. Jim Balsillie, co-chief executive of the company, explains, “We’re much more interested in changing the applications and changing the user experience and really unlocking the promise and the money and revenue opportunity for the ecosystem.”  RIM believes it “is going to innovate in the right way to drive that value proposition to capture [the] growth [in the category.]”

It appears RIM is aspiring to a brand position grounded in thought-leadership and innovation.  This builds on the existing perceptions of the RIM/Blackberry brand which is credited by many for creating the smartphone category.  And focusing on transforming the business value proposition of apps seems consistent with the brand’s history in the productivity and business aspects of mobile.

So RIM also seems to be employing a smart brand strategy.  Carving out a position of leadership through innovation has fueled many successful brands – and leadership of the “ecosystem” would be particularly compelling in a space that has so many moving parts.  Such a brand can enjoy the halo effect from the rising brands of all of the players.

However an innovation-based brand position can often be one with narrower appeal, particularly in technology.  Leading edge customers may easily understand and appreciate the value of the innovations, but “crossing the chasm” to appeal to the mainstream is a huge challenge.  As was the case with the Blackberry when the iPhone launched, the first-to-market brand may be relegated to a smaller, more niche position, while a more broadly-appealing brand which follows may be able to gain more traction after enough people have had enough exposure to the innovation.

Google/Android as populist brand

Google and its Android Marketplace were also discussed in the NYT article.  In direct opposition to Apple, Google eschews any review process – it allows any developer to publish an application instantly and as such, its app store already offers 14,000 applications despite being launched only a few months ago. “We’re doing everything we can to open the device to both developers and consumers,” says Eric Chu, group manager of the Android platform.

In a word, Google’s brand position is “access.”   And, once again, this seems smart.  It fits with Google’s broader brand aspirations “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”  Just as its programs and apps for computer users are intended to help people communicate and collaborate more easily, Google is working to tear down the walls that segregate and restrict in the mobile app space.

The strength of this approach is its populist appeal.  It has the potential to attract a broader base and use that widespread popularity to squeeze out the followings of brands that are more intense, but albeit more limited in size.

Problems can arise, though, if the brand becomes too unfocused.  By trying to be everything to everyone, there’s the risk of becoming nothing to no one.  Also the brand’s value could be limited if it is perceived simply as a channel.  Without a clear, distinct point of added-value, it could be become a commodity which simply provides access to other brands.

my takeaways

In the end, the point of all of this is not to advocate for any particular strategy.  They all have merit. And there are those who are much more qualified than me to posit which brand is most likely to be successful.  I simply want to suggest two important points about brand strategy that I took away from the NYT article:

• 1.    The importance of differentiation. In far too many categories, I see multiple brands trying to position themselves in the same way.  The values and attributes embodied by each brand are not distinct from the others and all of the brands end up simply promoting drivers of the category.  In some cases this happens because the brands’ owners don’t understand or appreciate the value of differentiation.  But in many cases it’s because they think it’s not possible to carve out a distinct brand position.  The players in the mobile app space have demonstrated that differentiation is not only possible, it’s necessary. Differentiation helps companies steal share – and when differentiation is done well, it can grow the entire category.

• 2.    There are advantages and disadvantages of every brand strategy. No single approach is a sure bet.  Leveraging the strengths of your brand position while minimizing its vulnerabilities requires careful management. And in a category that is changing and growing as quickly as mobile apps, the ability to adapt as the market evolves is key.  Back in the ancient history of mobile apps (aka last year), Apple’s brand strategy could be based more on exclusivity and the cool factor of being the only real player in the market.   Now as others have gotten in the game, it’s had to adapt its approach and apply those attributes to its role as a curator and quality controller.

Are there other brand strategy takeaways from the mobile app market?  Let me hear your thoughts – comments are open.

related posts:

• brand as seal of approval
• squeezing blackberries
• pure joy

A lot of my friends have been talking about my recent post on the iPhone app, Ocarina.  Over the course of our conversations, I realized that I’d given the Apple brand all the credit for delivering such creativity and joy.

And I’d begun to feel guilty about bestowing such positive praise on Apple for a piece software it didn’t create.  After all, the company that developed and distributes the program, Smule, deserves the credit, right?   Shouldn’t the Ocarina build Smule’s brand equity?  As a brand person, shouldn’t I be more careful about where brand attribution is placed?

But then a friend of mine set me straight.  He explained by saying something like, “There’s an important difference between Google’s Android and Windows-based phones which are becoming more open source.  Being open-source means you get a lot of different people developing programs for these phones and that means the quality of the applications can vary — you never know what you’re going to get.  However with the iPhone, Apple has set it up so that all programs must adhere to their standards and so you know that all the iPhone apps are going to be good.”

So what he is saying is the Apple brand is really serving as editor and quality control here — by endorsing another company’s product, it is building its own brand as an arbitor of what is good.  I found this insight profound — it speaks to the role of a brand as a seal of approval, not just for its own products, but also for all related products.

And this uncovers an important opportunity in today’s marketplace, where we’re seeing more and more companies partner with others to provide add-ons, services, experiences, etc. to supplement their core products.  How can you position your brand so that you get your fair share — if not more — of the credit for the new offerings that arise out of these partnerships?

To take a page out of Apple’s book, it’s about maintaining the same high standards for everything you do, never compromising, never making exceptions — that might make it harder to work with you, but in the end, your brand will benefit.