Creating Memorable Brand Names Without Hassles

Chapters

• 0:00 Navigating Trademark Issues in Naming
• 11:59 Building Brand Identity Through Customer Interaction

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

On this episode of the Nerd Brand Podcast. We're talking about naming. You know, what do you think about when you want to name something, or is it taken? You might want to consider that before you name it Up next. Welcome to this episode of the NerdBrand Podcast. We're talking about naming. I have an idea. I'm going to name a thing. Uh-oh, can't do it.

Speaker 1: 0:44

Trademark Happens all the time. That was more than you think. So there are ways to go about checking that to make sure that it's not taken. So we're going to go through some of the ways to do that. Hire a lawyer, business lawyer, have them do the research, somebody with a trademarking background, so you don't get it right. Otherwise you can go down the road and not realize it, because most agencies this is not what they do. We're told to make a thing pretty and strategize and do this and SEO that, and that's all we're supposed to do. We're not lawyers. But well, we can talk about a few things here on this podcast, about how to go about objectively naming something or how to just figure that out. Before you go through all that exercise and waste time. You're going to laugh at this. But Google it.

Speaker 1: 1:42

A search engine like Google Search is very powerful. Google it. A search engine like Google search is very powerful. You'll see right away. First of all, are there domains with it? You can use another cool tool called Panaby or just your registrar. If you have a Google account, you can just put it in there. It'll tell you if the domain is taken or not. If you want to use the exact name in the domain that is, the dot com, for your business. But doing a Google search will allow you to see whether or not, if a part of the name you're using is trademarked, because that could happen to you. It could be just a part name, it could be part of it, it could be, I don't know. I've seen the weirdest things, to be honest, with you over the last five years. That people trademark that means you have to add a, the or an s or something to to get out of. However you know, but you want to make sure that you know just doing a Google search and the search result page and looking that over for the first three or four pages, just to make sure you know you're not running across something that's been used and generally that first result page is going to tell you right away that right away what you need to know.

Speaker 1: 2:46

The next one is social media. Some folks may be at the start of the process, and that would be another place that you can go and see if it's in use. Consistent usernames and branding across social media platforms should be the norm, but you never know. It's always good to just go into Facebook and do a search there. It has a search feature. You can also do the same on Instagram. You can do the same on basically any platform, so it gives you an idea of is something out there?

Speaker 1: 3:15

Of course, ultimately, business name checker tools. Those are really important. Big one, secretary of State, that you're in, you know, but you'd have to check all 50 states, cause you could find the same name in 50 states. So you know, sometimes, if they're not trademarked, you can go ahead and use it. It may not be popular enough for people to want it, but yeah, you know, it's not a problem, just do it. However, um, oh, and I shouldn't be clear that I am not trying to say trademark and copyright are the same here. They're not anyhow um, so use a business name checker tool. Uh, you know, I, you can actually do a search for that term, um, to find a bunch of them. Uh, they could be really helpful and even if you pay like 20 bucks for one just to do a one-time shot, to make sure it's worth it. It's just just, you know, you don't want to spend thousands of dollars on creating a brand and marketing campaigns and three months in you're like, oh, we can't do this. Um, you know, and a $20 thing would have been nothing compared to that, right, so you can use those. Um.

Speaker 1: 4:21

Other things are it's like you want to name something, make it easy to spell, and I know that to get around naming of things, that it's sometimes, like I said, you can add an S, you can add a the. Some people just drop off nouns off the end. It's kind of funny, but it works and that name comes from that. So if you really try to trademark something and you do the same thing, I mean you're the exact spelling. I mean that's yeah, you're going to get caught, get caught. So the naming of something is it easy to spell?

Speaker 1: 4:54

There's this weird thing for everybody that listens to this podcast it's in Louisville and in Kentucky. We all can agree, right, that it's not Walmarts or Meyers Kroger's, like there's no S, right? So, yeah, I'm pretty sure they thought about that. I wonder how many times they thought about that in their boardrooms. Like people still put an S on the end of this thing because there's not an S Sort of like how some people add an R to wash. Like no, it's wash. Anyway, I digress. So make sure it's unique in the state. If you figure out and get the spelling right and you do your searches, like I said, look for the state, look at Secretary state. If you figure out and get the spelling right and you do your searches, like I said, look for the state, look at secretary of state sites. They, thosegovs, are pretty reliable. They have places where you can look up business registrations and then you can find out whether or not if it's been taken.

Speaker 1: 5:41

Um, there was a rule a while back and again, I'm not a lawyer, so you cannot take any of this as legal advice but there was a while back where somebody was telling me that 30% change would make it justifiable to do. Now I don't know how much I buy into that Story time. So once upon a time this web developer was much younger and did websites for a category of businesses that most people would cut their eye out with a spoon, so doing that. By the way, nobody at NerdBrand that we service is in this category. So if you're listening, no, it's not you Anyhow. So they literally wanted a Superman logo for their thing. I'll say it that way. And, of course, naturally, the place I was working at was like hey, jason, you know. So I was like all right. However, and you got to remember, this is like 15, 20 years ago. You can't do that, and I had to explain why to people I worked with, but then also to the person on the phone who wanted it. So the compromise was to make it 30% different, so it didn't look like the Superman logo or emblem. Yeah, this happened.

Speaker 1: 7:09

Fast forward to today. There's a Superman movie coming out and we don't really know if we're going to get to see. It Seems like it is. They're pushing it still. I mean, technically, the lawsuit for this is that in the UK courts, the copyright or the trademark or something it stands, and so, going back to past movies and that includes the Zack Snyder run, I think as far back as that they claim that you cannot use Superman or make a movie or distribute that film or any of that, and this would also include, by the way, the um, for those that don't know, there was another like clark and lois. Lois and clark uh film. This is not the dean. It may actually include dean kane actually and in that, in that series, but um, yeah, because you can't distribute that.

Speaker 1: 8:06

So basically they're filming a film in la that they could distribute into theaters across the continental United States. It's definitely not going to go on streaming because that's worldwide, but that would be the only places that would get the film would be theaters in the continental United States, so they couldn't take the film and release it in the UK, china and all these other markets, which is absolutely critical for a film like that to hit the goals that it needs to make money. So that's kind of ongoing right now. So it's very interesting to see what Warner Brothers will do, because they've run into their own little issue with using a property or an IP that they cannot fully use because they were operating under current United States trademark laws.

Speaker 1: 8:55

So trademarking is a nasty business. When you name something or you're messing with a property and you want to market that thing and sell it or be that thing. It's just, it just is. It is more probably difficult to come up with the name. Well, I guess maybe that would be debatable. If Mitch was here He'd tell us. But the debate about is it harder to come up with a name or is it harder to deal with all the legal hoops in order to you know if you really have to use that name or whatever. So I would say that it's definitely a challenge. It's a challenge in of itself before any logo is made or any colors are selected.

Speaker 1: 9:33

But, anyways, you hope that the name is unique, at least in the state that you're operating in, and you want to hope the name doesn't imply the business is affiliated with an illegal organization or agency. Just saying it could maybe look like it'd be something else and that could be a problem. So you will definitely. This is where you definitely want to hire a business lawyer is where you definitely want to hire a business lawyer. So, um, you just won't legal conflicts when you're trying to build a brand. I mean, it creates confusion when that happens because you could end up partially deployed.

Speaker 1: 10:06

Um, you know, a unique name showcases like your unique brand name, showcases your uniqueness in the first place. So it's not, um, it's not a bad investment to hire an agency like ours to do that research and of course, we would still tell you to hire a lawyer, because we're not lawyers. I mean, that's what these people do. They live for this. Um, we live to get the name and and or make the name and then work through that process and then when the lawyers say all good, they come back and we go cool, but we do not include that as part of our service line. To pay for XYZ lawyer I'm sorry If there's any lawyers out there listening and you want to help with that, happy to talk to you and how we can roll that in if it helps us both. But honestly, it's something that you know. They're separate businesses. I mean, we can come up with the name, send it off. Our customer sends it to the lawyers. Lawyers come back, say all good and then we proceed with creative and deliverables and I think that's a safe way to do it for everybody involved.

Speaker 1: 11:11

So, um, naming is a very tricky uh thing. It's also, um, it's hard when you find out you have to rename anyway. It's hard when you have to change the dream because you kind of feel like you are, but you know you're really not. You got to remember the identity is built around you. It's just a name, as Mitch says. It's like with the logo it's just a mark, it's not. You know, you are the brand and eventually, even though you may be a large organization, when they see that, eventually it's like what is it that they're going to remember the most? Are they going to remember a face, a place, or are they going to remember how they were treated, to focus on? And then everything else organically falls in line.

Speaker 1: 11:59

Many brands come and say we don't really know how to shape this. We know we want this kind of culture. Don't say culture, we want this kind of thing, we want to feel this way, and those are very, very legitimate things to think about. But you have to start with not and then I was taught this a while back with startups that get out of the boardroom, talk to the people that actually interact with your brand every day current customers, past customers, potentially even the new customers and figure out and again, you have to spend this money with an agency like ours to figure this out because these interviews and these things are important to do before you start any sort of major project with regards to brand identity. So, anyways, that's about all I can say right now about naming.

Speaker 1: 12:46

It's a short episode. We have been very busy here at NerdBrand. You know the boys are out cracking the whip doing the thing that they need to do and I'm really proud of them. So they're getting it done.

Speaker 1: 13:01

We've had one heck of a year in 2024, and we are looking forward to hopefully some, I think, for everybody, including our customers some brighter futures and horizons, whatever the term is, moving forward as we get ready to get towards spring, because right now we're in the middle of another snowmageddon and I'm done with snow now and whoever's doing whoever's causing it, stop, thank you. Anyways, if you like this episode of the NerdBrand Podcast, you can go listen to it at nerdbrandagencycom slash podcast or your favorite podcast app That'd be Spotify, or it's always Apple iTunes in my heart, but anyways, you can also find us on other networks like iHeartMedia and other places as well, and or, if you just want to, just Google Nerd Brand Podcast, you'll find a way to listen to us online, and we appreciate all of our listeners and we hope out there everybody keeps their nerd brand strong.