VIEW FROM THE GROUND: Increasingly, firms use ideals to describe themselves but names mean nothing without products worth selling behind them
The very first thing I decide upon when starting a new book is the names of the central characters. The right first name makes them come alive for me and a Samantha (in my view) is clearly going to be a very different sort of girl with a very different set of problems than a Noeleen, while a Tristram is as far removed from a Trev as is possible to be.
I'm influenced, I suppose, by the names of people I've known in the past - having once been beaten up by a Veronica I've never quite seen her as anything other than the villain of the piece as a potential character, but I've never been able to write about a nasty girl called Jenny, since that was the name of my "best friend" aged 10.
Trying to come up with a company name must involve a similar process. What does the name evoke? Is it consistent with the type of image the company is trying to portray? Does it make us, in some way, empathise with the company or does it make us think of them unfavourably? Do we, the consumer, like it?
In an ever-more image- conscious world, getting the right name is very important.
Although many successful firms are still named after their founders - like Bloomberg and Ryanair - or after the product, like IBM, it seems that increasingly businesses use an "ideal" to describe themselves - as evidenced, perhaps, in the latest offering by CGNU, which is proposing to change its name to Aviva. CGNU is, of course, a life assurance company and its corporate presence in the Republic is met by Hibernian, which is part of the group. Apparently the Hibernian brand name is a particularly strong one and so Hibernian won't be renamed but will be known as Hibernian - an Aviva Group Company.
When I first heard the name Aviva I didn't actually think of a life company. I thought of aromatherapy oils, low-fat spreads and gym membership. It appears that I was on the right lines.
According to CGNU Group chief executive Richard Harvey, the name brings "associations of life, vitality and living well. This matches the aspirations we have for our customers". It must do, I guess. After all, life assurance companies don't want you to die too soon; it'd cost them too much money. And certainly the images of oils, spreads and pumping iron are lifestyle-oriented.
Apparently there's a women's clothes shop called Aviva in Norwich (where CGNU has a strong presence, since Norwich Union is the NU part of the equation). Nobody is suggesting there's a conflict between the life assurance company and the shop, although I'm sure that it too has aspirations of life, vitality and living well for its customers. The aspiration of the Aviva shop must be to want its customers to go out on the town as much as possible (which may conflict slightly with the more holistic approach of the life assurance company) since this creates a demand for new outfits on a regular basis. Still, I'm sure they'll manage to co-exist peacefully.
I suppose the other most noticeable new name of recent times is Accenture, courtesy of Andersen Consulting, a name that was supposed to put an "accent on the future" to emphasise the firm's commitment to focusing their clients' energies on their own futures.
I'm not entirely convinced about Accenture (and of course the computer won't even let me put the funny accent on the word anyway) although, I suppose that since the Enron debacle and devaluation of the name Andersen in any context, the management probably think that the money they spent on rebranding is paying dividends now.
The right name can give a company a competitive edge, which is why there are so many small firms in the Golden Pages prefixed AAA, as they hope to get the lazy consumer who can't be bothered to look through the listings. Of course if you're a bit of a rebel like me, you start at the end of the listings and look for the ZZZs on the basis that AAA isn't challenging enough.
However, there's a whole industry out there helping to give your company the right name to set you off on the trail to world domination. According to David Placek, the founder of Lexicon Naming (pretty much gets to the point as a corporate name in itself), clients are currently into short names, preferring words of less than seven letters.
There's a definite impact in something short and snappy, particularly if it has an image attached - although the six-letter rebranding of Telecom Éireann to Eircom didn't exactly have us jumping up and down in the aisles, did it?
Like everything (and I realise that this has been a theme of mine over the past few weeks) the name means nothing without a product worth selling behind it. Aviva can sell me health and vitality all it likes but unless its fund managers know what they're doing and my policies pay out what I expect, then all the images of cavorting round in buttercup-filled meadows won't mean a thing.
A company whose name doesn't in the slightest way reflect its product is one of my perennial favourites - Apple. Apparently Steve Jobs named his company in remembrance of a happy summer he'd spent working in an Oregon orchard, which is a nicer way, perhaps, than a brainstorming session with image consultants.
I see that Compustore (gets the message across even if its 10 letters) has opened an Apple-dedicated store in Kildare Street but I don't think I'll go in. There is something about the newest Macs (Mac, good and snappy but short for Macintosh - would anyone have advised that as a computer name?) that's enticingly attractive. I don't need a new computer or a new laptop. But I have a horrible feeling that if I walk through the doors I'll end up coming out with both.
Because regardless of the name it's really the product that matters and I like the product. Actually, I'd like it even if it was named Microsoft.
