Out in the real world, a generic name isn’t ever an appropriate brand name. These names don’t have far reaching potential as trademarks even if you are able to register them (which we might be able to do when combined with a logo). Regardless, people select generic names because the name signals the type of services or products that the business offers.
Is that different on the Internet? Would brands such as the following be good ones: Books.com, Books4Less.com, Business.com, Pets.com, and PersonalInjuryLawyer.com?
Before we respond to this question, we want to be clear about what we mean when we use the term ‘generic’ as it pertains to branding and trade marking. A generic name describes the product or service that the business provides. Whether a name is considered to be generic or not is relative. Wines.com and Mortgage.com are two examples of generic domain names that are reported to have been resold for a great deal of money. Name such as these are generic brand names for a company that sells wine and a company that provides mortgages, respectively. To provide an inane example, if a wine merchant utilized the brand name Mortgage.com, or the mortgage provider utilized the name Wines.com, those names would be distinctive instead of descriptive for trademark purposes, even though as a brand name it still would be less preferable than a proper name – a related issue which is not going to be covered in this article.
Therefore, 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, unusual and non-descriptive name provides you with the singularity that makes for a memorable, trademarkable brand name.
In terms of trademarks, the best names are those that suggest a certain product or service, but that do not describe them. If a business can create a memorable name, hopefully a proper name such as Coca Cola, Exxon, Ford, Mercedes Benz, etc., the name will be fit perfectly for creating a brand identity with it.
Why is a descriptive name not recommended?
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 thing that constitutes a great brand name offline is the same as what constitutes a great brand name online. Even though people are prone to think it’s good to choose generic names, maybe because they are mixed up about the search engine advantages that a name like this might give, generic names are actually a bad choice for an online brand name, the same as they’re a bad choice for an offline brand name. A good brand name will help you let others know exactly what your business does. Like, if your name is Books4less, folks will automatically know a little about your goals. The name Amazon might not immediately suggest value at first. But after you’ve had good experiences with Amazon, you’ll remember its distinctive name far better than a generic name like Books4Less.
Then why are there so many Internet businesses with subpar names? Maybe due to the fact that when the internet first started, there weren’t many sites to choose from, and an identifiable, generic name was a bonus. If you needed to find a site that sold toys, you would type in “toys.com”. Think of it like a department store from years past. You sought out businesses based on their name. Simple descriptive names, therefore, were the best way to get your site’s purpose across to audiences. However, as more and more websites cropped up, these descriptive names became less and less distinctive.
People new to the web still try to do what was done before, regardless. These people have the notion that a descriptive name is the route to take, and grab these names, wrongly assuming that it’s the right thing to do. Other sites might have common names, but that doesn’t mean you should too. All that it means is that the majority of Internet operators are under group pressure to do the same thing as others.
Guidelines for selecting online brand names
So, when you are selecting an online trading name, try to come up with a unique name just as some of the more successful Internet businesses have done, such as Yahoo, Amazon, Dell, Facebook and eBay. These are the businesses that have done well and that we remember, while the vast majority of businesses with generic names have disappeared in a cloud of smoke, even though they had serious venture capital backing. All that is left to remind us of them is their domain names, which may have had several owners in the meantime, with their value mostly lying in their search value. For instance, books.com now redirects to Barnes & Noble, thus bringing additional traffic to that site.
Also note that on the Internet, you don’t have billboards or locations that can draw customers in. If “Books” is the name of a brick-and-mortar store, there are other things that might make customers stop by. For instance, the store might be noticed because of the nice window display or where it is located, or maybe just due to the fact that it is there now instead of the store which was there previously. In the world wide web, a person can discover you only via your brand name. You do not want to get lost in the middle of similar 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.
