Dumbed-Down Branding

The phrase “dumbed-down” usually infers that something has been made simple. Often in marketing, keeping it simple is a good thing. When it comes to branding however, dumbing it down can have just plain dumb results. Seth Godin has written a branding post on his blog that provides some examples of dumb name branding strategies.

His post resonated with me because recently my wife and I visited a store called Liquidation World. This company has a similar non-memorable brand as the ones Seth has pointed out. The few times I have referred to this store since being there I have called it Liquidation Warehouse. See the problem? The name is meaningless and hence when I have mentioned it to a few friends I am certainly not helping with the word-of-mouth chain because I am misrepresenting their brand (well actually, it is debatable if they have one at all).

Positive word-of-mouth advertising is one of the best gifts a a business can get. However, it is essentially wasted if your customers don’t get your name right…