Business Management Life

The name is attention getting and perfectly brands the product. “Dragon Skin” is a type of body armor made by Pinnacle Armor. It is unique by its construction — silver dollar-sized circular discs that overlap like fish scales, creating a flexible vest that allows a greater range of motion and can absorb more hits than standard military body armor.

It looks likes fish scales, so why not call it fish skin? Because that name sucks! The marketing genius behind the name Dragon Skin is the image it conjures up simply with the name. Since dragons obviously don’t actually exist, its marketing is in the mind play of the potential buyer: Dragon Skin must be tough, impervious to attack, and look really macho cool.

Now look at the names of your products. Do they speak to the customer? Do they conjure up images in the potential buyer? I imagine some of you are shaking your head and saying to yourself, “But my products have to be descriptive of what they actually are.” Sure that’s one mind set. Using that mindset, Dragon Skin could be called Silicon Carbide Ceramic Matrix Armor. Ho hum. That name means something to the chemist who created the technology but leaves the potential buyer flat. Pinnacle Armor knows this.

How do you differentiate your products?

Finding the right pitch and placement for products is critical in the correct positioning of that product. Simply offering an auto loan forces people to see that as a commodity. Immediately they price shop. You are just one of the mix that way. How else could you position your auto loan product to a select segment of your market? Do you have a college student as one of your segments? What could you do to name a product directed at them? Do you have a more senior membership base? Could you market your auto loan toward that age group with a different name?

Take a look at your three best-selling products. Whether you are an attorney, director of a financial institution, a distributor, or a small business owner you need to have products that differentiate you in the marketplace.

What are the names of those three products you selected? Do they create a mental image? Do they grab your attention? Do they create uniqueness in a commoditized marketplace?

Have an impromptu brainstorming session with your management team on what names you could come up with to create some differentiation for those products. Get silly, get wild and laugh a lot. I promise you will find a better name for what you sell that will brand that product better and will be easily recognizable in the market place. Your staff will enjoy using the new name when pitching customers and prospects. Everyone likes to be part of the fresh and well positioned. With the right name for your product, you will increase the perceived value and sales of that product.

Useful Links:

bank loan, cash loan, flexible loan.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 27th, 2007 at 8:23 am and is filed under Leadership, Management, Hiring, Ideas, Tips, Blog Carnival. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.