How to brand a product
Whether it’s your first ever product or the latest in a long line, each one needs a branding approach that expresses what it does and who it’s for.
Choose a great name
Names matter – and it’s tricky to change them after they’ve been assigned, so make sure you evaluate a few options and don’t rush into choosing a name for your product. If you’ve got a strong candidate in mind, sit with it for a few days to give yourself time to fully mull it over.
Choosing a product name isn’t so different from choosing a great brand name. It needs to be easy to write, pronounce and remember, and it should be unique.
Link it into your wider product range
If your brand is a family, the products are the members. Each item needs a defined identity that stands out from the rest of the range. If your new product is an evolution of an existing one, for example a travel-sized version or a similar design that uses different materials, make the relationship clear by linking the brands together. It could be a variation on the name, a re-work of an existing logo or simply a clear explanation in your marketing.
Not only does this help customers choose between your products more easily, it also helps you borrow a bit of brand kudos from a successful existing product – the famous halo effect.
Stand out from the competition
To give your product branding an edge over the competition, you need to know what the strengths and weaknesses of rival products are. Hopefully you’ve already got a bit of insight from your product development and market knowledge, so it shouldn’t take long to identify your contenders.
How do those other products measure up on price, quality, range, style and packaging? And how about your customer service, shipping charges and any offers or loyalty programs? The areas where you’re strongest are the ones to really showcase in your product branding, because not only are they great features, they’re reasons to choose your product over the competition.
Make it its own best advertisement
Label, design, packaging, presentation… how your product looks is a huge part of its success, especially in a world of unboxing videos and detailed customer reviews. Great branding can help generate a buzz around your product, as well as creating a strong positive association with customers who appreciate the effort you’ve put in. Want to take great photos of your products for your online store? Check out our guide here.
You don’t need to spend a fortune creating bespoke boxes and fancy tags – the personal touch can be just as successful in branding your product, especially if you’re a small business selling online. Ribbons, Stickers, even a swing-tags made from a MiniCard will help your product shine and create a glowing first impression.
Brainstorming a new product idea? Jot everything down in your MOO Notebook and keep every brainwave at your fingertips.
In a world crowded with branding and marketing, what sets great brand names apart from the rest? We look at some of the world’s best brand names and what gives them their magic.
1. Unique in any language – Häagen Dazs
The decadent ice-cream for grown ups has been a household name since the 1960s, and the fact that its name sticks in the memory is probably no coincidence. With its doubled vowels and consonants and the snazzy umlaut on the first ‘a’, it sounds strikingly foreign, a little exotic and rather sophisticated. But in fact it’s 100% made up.
The name doesn’t mean anything in any language, and although its creators intended it to sound Danish, there’s no umlaut in the Danish language.
2. Rolls off the tongue – Coca-Cola
The name simply has a fantastic cadence – there’s a sing-song quality to paired words which start off the same and end differently. It’s also versatile, being easily shortened to the equally iconic ‘Coke’. The inventor of the name was marketing-savvy even in the 1880s, saying that ‘the two Cs would look well in advertising’.
3. Short and powerful – Nike
If you take a look at the world’s most powerful brands, you’ll notice they all keep it short and sweet. One-word brands are simple to remember, and they are easy to work with graphically, giving brands the scope to create equally punchy and powerful logos and visuals.
4. Does what it says on the tin – Netflix
The media giant started out as a service sending DVDs by post to online subscribers, but quickly found its stride in the streaming market. Having a solid core niche in movies and TV, along with a brand name literally synonymous with films online, was a serendipitous mix.
5. Sounds like the product – Schweppes
The word Schweppes mimics the sound of opening the ring-pull on a tin of carbonated soda. We defy you to say the word without thinking about cracking open a cold one. In fact though, the onomatopoeia is a happy coincidence. It was the real name of Johann Schweppe, the Swiss entrepreneur who discovered a scalable way to add ‘bubbles’ to drinks.
6. Positive associations – Verizon
By combining the words ‘horizon’ and ‘veritas’ (meaning truth), the mobile and telecom behemoth creates a powerful one-two punch of positive associations with its brand name.
7. Bucks the trend – PayPal
These days it’s a big-league player, but when it started out in 1998, PayPal was a fintech pioneer before fintech even existed. Choosing a name that was friendly, bouncy, cheerful and even a little gimmicky was totally at odds with the banking stereotype of seriousness and suits, setting it firmly apart from traditional money services. But it paid off, turning out to be a prescient move that helped define the brand niche for a whole genre of startups.