The advantage of suggestive brand names

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📝 Intro

You’re launching a file-sharing app, designed to make it extremely easy and seamless to share any type of file, and are trying to finalize the name. After extensive work, your team narrowed it down to 3 options:

• Shareplus+

• EasyShare

• Sharezy

One of the core studies in suggestive brand naming tells us why option 2 is probably the best choice.

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People remember a product's benefit more when the brand name is linked to the benefit

Topics: Brand & Strategy
For: B2C. Can be tested for B2B 
Research date: Jan 1998
Universities: Duke University, University of Arizona, University of Minnesota.

📈 Recommendation

Choose a brand name that highlights a key feature of your product (e.g. Windows Defender for anti-virus software, Hubspot as a centralized hub for marketing and sales contacts). People will be more likely to remember this key feature (e.g. defending your computer or centralizing company contacts) and accept your product’s role in it.

If you don’t have a single key benefit you want to highlight, or want to focus on different key benefits at different times, it’s better to use a more flexible brand name that doesn’t suggest any one specific benefit.

🎓 Findings

• When a brand name mentions or suggests a key benefit (e.g. Speedy Courier), people remember this key benefit better than if the brand name doesn’t allude to any specific benefit.

• As part of 2 lab experiments, researchers compared suggestive vs non-suggestive names such as:

  • FlexiSound and Sovereign (stereo receivers)

  • Sure-Bounce and Coopers (tennis balls)

  • Lifelong and Ocean (suitcases)

  • CompuQuick and Criterion (computers)

• They found that:

  • People rated a brand with a suggestive name 55% more likely to possess the benefit

  • People recalled the benefit 2.2 times more when a suggestive brand name was used and were able to recall the benefit equally well after seeing the brand’s ads again two days later

  • People were as likely to be able to recall other product benefits not hinted at in the brand name.

• The effect is weaker for benefits not related to the brand name. When shown ads multiple times, people were able to recall an unrelated benefit 14% less for a brand with a suggestive brand name compared to a brand with a non-suggestive brand name.

🧠 Why it works

• Suggestive names create an association with a core benefit of the brand.

• This makes it easier for us to remember information related to that meaning when we see it in ads.

• Once this link is formed in our minds, it’s much harder for brands to reposition or create new associations, as we generally don’t process separate information as well as the initial association we’ve formed.

✋ Limitations

• The research centers around 2 experiments done in a university lab. These findings were not confirmed in field experiments or accompanied by an analysis of existing brand names - which is best practice in more recent studies.

• The study looked at fictitious brands. The effect would likely be different for established brands with whom people have real-world associations, especially as these companies rebrand or shift the product benefits they focus on.

• The research focused on the effect of the brand name on memory - it still needs to be tested whether this reinforced association would persuade customers better and influence buying behavior.

🏢 Companies using this

• Across categories, brands often use their name to highlight a specific benefit or characteristic of their product, for example:

  • JustJuice juices

  • Beautyrest mattresses

  • Verifalia - a website providing verified contact information for outreach

  • Co-Schedule - a platform for managing and scheduling on multiple social media platforms

  • DoorDash food delivery service

• Older brands have struggled to reinvent or reposition themselves when using names focused on a specific attribute:

  • Financial services company John Hancock’s name highlighted the trust of a signature but faced troubles portraying themselves as innovative and appealing to younger audiences. As the phrase “John Hancock” has grown less common as a synonym for a signature, their original suggestion has also become less effective.

  • Men’s hygiene brand Old Spice effectively highlighted its traditional scent for years but struggled to connect to younger audiences.

I can’t believe it’s not Butter! Highlights how similar their product tastes to butter through their name.

⚡ Steps to implement

• If you have a core benefit or feature of your product you want to highlight,  incorporate a suggestion of that benefit in your name to reinforce the link. This works if you have one key feature you want to focus on above all else, for example:

  • A business software highlighting the ease of collaboration (e.g. Microsoft Teams)

  • A toothpaste focusing on sensitive teeth (e.g. Sensodyne)

  • A condom focusing on it’s durability (e.g. Durex)

• If your product name focuses on a single benefit, introduce sub-brands or new brands with different names if you want to highlight other benefits. This is more effective than trying to shift your customers’ minds from the benefit suggested in your name.

• If there are multiple features or benefits you want to highlight, or you feel you might want to change your focus later on, stick to a more flexible brand name so you can easily reposition your brand in the future.

🔍 Study type

Lab experiments.

📖 Research

The Effects of Brand Name Suggestiveness on Advertising Recall. Journal of Marketing (January 1998)

🏫 Researchers

• Kevin Lane Keller. Fuqua School of Business, Duke University

• Susan E. Heckler. University of Arizona

• Michael J. Houston. University of Minnesota 

Remember: This is a scientific discovery. In the future it will probably be better understood and could even be proven wrong (that’s how science works). It may also not be generalizable to your situation. If it’s a risky change, always test it on a small scale before rolling it out widely.

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