Categories: Naming

If you manage to create a new category and be the first in it, you have a chance to name the category. You can introduce the category name in your marketing literature and PR campaigns.

The guidelines for choosing a category name differ from the guidelines for choosing a brand name. While descriptive brand names are a bad idea, a category name is by nature descriptive.

"Xerox" was a powerful brand name that dominated the "copier" category. The brand name was a blank slate, not descriptive of anything [at least to the average person; see the comments], especially of the product. The category name, on the other hand, was a straightforward description of the product's function.

The main guideline in choosing a category name is to ensure it clearly conveys that the product(s) in it differ significantly from products in existing categories. Such a category name aids in the marketing of your product, as it makes it easier to position it versus the competition.

Comments

Anonymous said…

Xerox is a descriptive name, The Haloid Company was renamed to Haloid Xerox cause their first copier did use xerography.

And sorry, I dont agree with the nill brand names. This might be needed nowadasys to get trademarks, but it was never needed in earlier days.

Have a coke, have a pepsi?
Bernd

Tue Dec 05, 06:51:00 PM 2006

Roger L. Cauvin said…

Thanks for the info about Xerox, Bernd. From the point of view of the average consumer, however, "Xerox" didn't mean anything. It was a blank slate to most consumers.

The reknowned marketing guru Al Ries, his daughter Laura Ries, and the well-respected Seth Godin all agree: overly-descriptive or generic brand names are a bad idea. Scientific studies support their position.

If you have any studies or evidence to the contrary, please do share.

Tue Dec 05, 09:42:00 PM 2006

Why Spreadsheets Suck for Prioritizing

The Goal As a company executive, you want confidence that your product team (which includes all the people, from all departments, responsible for product success) has a sound basis for deciding which items are on the product roadmap. You also want confidence the team is prioritizing the items in a smart way. What Should We Prioritize? The items the team prioritizes could be features, user stories, epics, market problems, themes, or experiments. Melissa Perri makes an excellent case for a " problem roadmap ", and, in general, I recommend focusing on the latter types of items. However, the topic of what types of items you should prioritize - and in what situations - is interesting and important but beyond the scope of this blog entry. A Sad but Familiar Story If there is significant controversy about priorities, then almost inevitably, a product manager or other member of the team decides to put together The Spreadsheet. I've done it. Some of the mos

Stop Validating and Start Falsifying

The product management and startup worlds are buzzing about the importance of "validation". In this entry, I'll explain how this idea originated and why it's leading organizations astray. Why Validate? In lean startup circles, you constantly hear about "validated learning" and "validating" product ideas: The assumption is that you have a great product idea and seek validation from customers before expending vast resources to build and bring it to market. Indeed, it makes sense to transcend conventional approaches to making product decisions . Intuition, sales anecdotes, feature requests from customers, backward industry thinking, and spreadsheets don't form the basis for sound product decisions. Incorporating lean startup concepts , and a more scientific approach to learning markets, is undoubtedly a sounder approach. Moreover, in larger organizations, sometimes further in the product life-cycle, everyone seems to have an opinio

What Product Managers Can Learn from the Apple iPod

The Story When Apple unveiled its iPod digital music player back in October 2001, I dismissed it as a parity product . I already owned the Cowon iAUDIO CW100 MP3 player, loaded with my favorite tunes. There was Apple, generating great hype over the iPod as if it were a breakthrough product. The idea of a portable digital music player was nothing new. The first mass-produced MP3 players came out in 1998. In late 2001, the concept may have been new to a lot of Apple customers, but it wasn't new to me. I proudly showed my MP3 player to friends when they gushed about the iPod. Thus Apple's iPod was not an innovative product in and of itself. Years later, however, I realized the significance of ecosystem of which the iPod was a part. Apple had released iTunes (with technology purchased from SoundJam MP ) and created the iTunes Store for finding and downloading music. Unlike Napster , it was a safe and legal way of distributing and acquiring music. The prior way of playing

Cauvin

Search This Blog