Cobra vs. Creeping Charlie
Ground Ivy...sounds charming, like something you might actually want to grow. In fact, by its common name, "Creeping Charlie," it is one of the most hated weeds known. Of over 200,000 hits on Google, most include phrases like "how to get rid of," and over 1200 include the term "nightmare." But call it Ground Ivy, place an ad in the Sunday supplements, emphasize its ease of cultivation, and you could make a fortune.
A slang term for "name" is "handle," and a name is the handle by which prospects carry the information you give them about your product. Names make a difference; they are the shorthand by which prospects will remember your product, and it’s up to you to tell your prospect what that memory should be. Of course you have to be able to back your play. In the 1980s, Radio Shack’s under-powered TRS80 computer was quickly dubbed the "Trash 80." Before it’s early-80s horsepower boost, the supposedly-sporty Honda Prelude was widely referred to as the Quaalude. (For those too young to remember, Quaalude was a popular tranquilizer.) Firebirds, Mustangs, and Cobras, on the other hand, lived up to their names, and those names persisted, often for decades.
Not every technology product is a Mustang, but if your product can support a memorable title, why pass up to opportunity? After all, you can’t keep competitors from duplicating your features, but you can trademark a name. If you need to differentiate sizes or capacities, name the product family, offering, for example, Titanium 220, 340, and 450 models.
Finally, try to make your designations meaningful to your customers. An exception that (hopefully) proves the rule is the traditional naming of Porsche car models, for example their 356, 911, 928, and 944 models. The only pattern to the numbers is that they keep getting higher while the sizes, prices, and capabilities of the cars they represent seem to move up and down at random. The reason is simple: Porsche engineers number the blueprints coming out of their design shop in sequence. Most blueprints never become production models; hence the gaps in the numbering. But when a car does go into production, its original blueprint number becomes the model designation. Porsche can get away with that because, well, they’re Porsche. I, on the other hand, am not Porsche, and chances are, you aren’t either.
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