In the physical society a generic logo is not a quality name brand. Even if you are able to register them (which we may be able to help you with if a logo is included), names such as these do not have much potential as trademarks. Anyway, people pick generic names since this name instantly displays the kind of product or services the company offers.
Is it the same way online? Would the following be good brands: Books.com, Books4Less.com, Business.com Pets.com, and PersonalInjuryLawyer.com?
Prior to answering this question, allow us to make it clear what ‘generic’ means from the point of view of a branding and a trademark. A name that describes what products or services that the business provides is known as a generic name. Having a generic name depends on several things. Wines.com and Mortgage.com are two examples of generic domain names that have been reported to have been resold for a great deal of money. This type of name would be a generic example for a wine vendor or a mortgage provider, respectively. To provide a nonsensical example, if the wine merchant utilized the brand name Mortgage.com, or the mortgage provider utilized the brand name Wines.com, for trademark purposes those names would be considered distinctive, not descriptive (although it still would not be a good proper name – this is an issue that we will not touch on in this article).
So a name may be trademarked as long as it does not “consist exclusively of signs or indications which may serve to designate the kind, value, quantity or purpose of goods or services”. A unique and universal name offers you the individuality that represents a name that will be remembered.
The best trademarks are completely new that merely suggest, not describe, the product or service you have to offer. If a business can come up with a unique name, especially a proper name such as Coca Cola, Exxon, Ford, Mercedes Benz, McDonalds, or Starbucks, the name would be perfect for the purpose of constructing brand identity.
Why shouldn’t you use a descriptive name?
The negative outcome of confusion about the identity of a business and its competitors is why descriptive names for businesses are dangerous. Terms that competitors may have an appropriate reason to use in order to detail or market their products and services are also known as descriptive words. One example of this is that a seller of wine needs to have access to the term ‘wine merchant’ so that they are able to perform business functions. If the first person to utilize the term ‘wine merchant’ were able to prevent anyone else from utilizing that term, the first merchant would have such a monopoly on the market that there would be no competition in the marketplace. This isn’t even close to what a trademark is meant to do.
So since it is impossible to prevent competitors from utilizing the same descriptive words in their names, selecting a descriptive brand name ultimately results in the loss of some potential customers because those who are trying to find you, may come across your competition instead. This is why descriptive names aren’t the best choices to create a brand value or goodwill. You will have much more luck over time with a unique brand name rather than a descriptive one. When your unique name becomes recognized, trademark ensures that competitors won’t be able to leech off your success with copycat names. That’s what trademarks are for, after all: to ensure that consumers don’t get your business mixed up with another.
Brand Names – on the Internet
What does all this mean to the Internet where there is a tradition of selecting generic brand names? Is it wise to utilize a generic name for an online start up? Not really.
The characteristics of a good brand name are the same whether it is used offline or online. Although many people believe it is wise to choose generic names — perhaps because they think that it will confer search engine advantages by using a generic brand name — in reality, generic names are not a good choice for online brand names nor for offline brands. They might help to let people know what your business is about at the onset. For instance, if your company is named Books4Less, right off the bat people will have an idea about your business. However, if your name is Amazon, they will not know right away that you will provide them with a good price. However, once you have had a good experience with Amazon, you will remember its unique name much better than a nondescript name like Books4Less.
Now, what is the reason that such bad names are picked by so many businesses on the Internet? It could be because then the Internet was young and not many sites were online, it was an advantage to have a generic name. If you were interested in finding a sit that sold toys, you would type in “toys.com”. It was similar to a grocery store from the old days. No matter what you needed, you searched for it according to its name. Therefore, the best way to let people know what the site was about was to utilize a common, descriptive name. Nevertheless, as the numbers of websites continued to grow, having descriptive names such as these was no longer an advantage.
Nevertheless, web newcomers continue to follow the same formulas that have always been there. They make an incorrect assumption that they should opt for a descriptive name, so they do so thinking that it is the right thing to do. A common name isn’t necessarily the best for your site, even though there are many sites who opt for common names. This means that the pressure to conform is felt by most Internet sellers.
Guidelines for selecting online brand names
So when you are attempting to come up with online trading names, try to do what other successful Internet businesses have done and pick a name like Amazon, Yahoo, Dell, Bebo, Facebook and Ebay. These are the businesses that have survived, succeeded and are household names, while the many businesses with generic names fizzled into oblivion even though they had lots of money backing them up. The only thing left of them are valuable domain names that may have had several owners by this time. Their main value is for search purposes. An example would be how books.com redirects to the Barnes & Noble website, bringing extra web traffic.
Something else to keep in mind when selecting names is that on the Internet, there aren’t any storefront signs or geographic regions to draw in nearby traffic. Someone passing by an actual store might notice a book store for reasons other than what it is called, even if it is called ‘Books.’ For instance, the store might be noticed because of a creative window display, or because of where it is located, or maybe just due to the fact that it is there now, when something else used to be there. Your brand name is the only way people are able to locate you on the Internet. So you definitely do not want to lost in a throng of similar sounding names.
Stephen Grisham, Sr. is a Staff Writer for InfoServe Media, a small business web designer company that provides custom web design. Visit today, or call 1 (800) 838-2203 for a free quote.
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