How to Avoid These Common Naming Mistakes and Create a Beauty Brand You’ll Be Proud of

The ideal path to positioning your brand is to choose a name that has been thoroughly studied, has positive connotations in the language of your target customers, and is simple to speak and find online.
Business owner work with brand consultant
Source: Squadhelp
By | 7 min read

Do you realize that all the effort you’ve put into developing your brand could be destroyed by one mistake, particularly one concerning the brand name you choose? Undoubtedly, choosing a terrible brand name is among the most damaging things you can do to your company.

This is because the personality of your brand is formed and influenced by your company name. Therefore, it’s vital that you make sure the name of your brand appropriately conveys your organization’s principles.

The good news is it’s a lot easier today to choose a catchy name for your brand. Countless entrepreneurs embraced brand name generators, brainstorming, or employing the aid of a naming agency to buy a brand name that aligns with their business.

But whatever naming strategy you use, be careful and steer clear of the following naming blunders that could sabotage the reputation of your business.

#1. Easily misunderstood business names

Consumers interact with online brand on laptop
Source: Squadhelp

If a business holds similar political, cultural, and environmental views as its target customers, then its sales would increase remarkably. It’s no mystery that the average person has strong opinions on these delicate topics and is more likely to support a company that feels the same way.

Suppose your beauty company, however, decides to focus on these issues, even through your company’s marketing or messaging like Gillette. In that case, you’ll eventually end up excluding a significant portion of your audience because people who oppose the underlying cause you promote are always less inclined to purchase your goods or use your services.

It will be disastrous for your young company if you follow in the footsteps of Urban Decay’s ‘Druggie’ or Eskimo Pie, which was later changed to Edy’s Pie because its previous name had unfavorable racial undertones, which generated poor customer reactions. Controversial names like these will only provoke a negative reaction in consumers.

Additionally, keep in mind that customers cannot tell the difference between a company’s operations and those of its CEO or founder. As a result, it’s crucial to steer clear of or handle morally and politically sensitive situations with extreme discretion; otherwise, your business can suffer the same fate as brands like MyPillow, Harry’s Razor, and Gillette.

#2. Complicated brand names

Consumers interact with product from brand
Source: Squadhelp

Customers searching for clothes and beauty products online would be more drawn to a brand like ShoeStores – a pretty practical brand name – instead of brands with complicated names like Aeropostale and Euymhod.

Customers won’t even know that Aeropostale and Euymhod sell clothes. Not to mention that these names are unnecessarily challenging for people to pronounce or remember when searching online.

And since a significant portion of your customers will struggle to remember your company’s name, there’s a great chance that they won’t even suggest it to their friends and family. So, make developing concise, memorable, and engaging fashion and cosmetics brand name ideas your priority because 80% of customers forget about branded things within three days.

But even if you insist on using a long name, you can try shortening it, like H&M, EOS, IBM, and 3M. It’s not a secret in marketing that short, straightforward names usually capture your clients’ attention more quickly than long, complex ones.

Unfortunately, many businesses have failed to see the importance of choosing a memorable company name, ignoring the fact that brands like Amazon, Apple, and Target have successfully positioned themselves in the minds of consumers by capitalizing on their distinctive names.

And if you want your brand to leave a lasting impression on your customers, you need names that are catchy and easy to say. Even the most intricate and profound names fall short when compared to how welcome a simple name sounds.

#3. Strange meanings in foreign languages

Building a robust online presence for your company has the advantage of allowing customers from all over the world to contact and engage with your brand. Nevertheless, having a global identity has disadvantages. One of these disadvantages comes to play when you choose a brand name with an unusual meaning in the local language of the market you’re trying to enter.

And if your company’s name is negative in the language of your target market, potential clients will be reluctant to use your goods or services.

And just the same way any English-speaking person would be reluctant to try Pee Cola, two well-known products, the Mazda Laputa and the Nokia Lumia, were rejected by Spanish-speaking customers because their names, incidentally, translated to ‘prostitute’ in Spanish.

When looking for the perfect name for their company, business owners shouldn’t limit their linguistic research to just one language. Make sure you only choose a brand name after conducting a comprehensive analysis of the main languages in the industry you’re aiming to penetrate and the critical languages spoken worldwide. Doing this ensures that your selected name will be well-liked by your global customers.

#4. Choosing a name based on emotions

We all experience an emotional commitment when we create something, whether it be an idea, a product, or a service, and this is nothing new.

However, resist the urge to allow your emotions to influence your decisions. It is a recipe for disaster to choose a name based on your tastes rather than on research and what your clients desire. You can hinder the success and expansion of your brand by choosing a name based only on your feelings about it rather than on research.

Prioritize your clients

It may seem cliche at this point, but most business owners become so focused on making a profit that they lose sight of the fact that their company’s primary objective is to serve their target market. Therefore, prioritize your client’s needs and wants as much as possible.

Profit-driven companies soon lose customers because no one wants to work with a company they believe is not interested in coming up with creative and unique solutions to their problems. These business owners end up with unmarketable names that repel customers and ineffectively position their business.

The ideal path to positioning your brand is to choose a name that has been thoroughly studied, has positive connotations in the language of your target customers, and is simple to speak and find online. You won’t need to rename your business after a few years if you pick a superb name.

  • Polachek is the head of branding for Squadhelp.com, 3X Inc 5000 startup and disruptive naming agency. Squadhelp has reviewed more than 1 million names and curated a collection of the…