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.
Are online sites the same? Would Books.com, Books4Less.com, Business.com, Pets.com, and PersonalInjuryLawyer.com be good brands?
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.
So 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 and universal name offers you the individuality that represents a name that will be remembered.
When it comes to trademark terms, the best names are those that are made up and hint at the product or services that are being offered, but do not describe them. If a company can come up with a unique name — something along the lines of Pepsi, Toyota, Honda, Burger King, etc. — the name will be perfect for building a brand identity around it.
What’s wrong with descriptive names?
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.
Therefore, since you cannot prevent competitors from utilizing the same descriptive words in their names, selecting a descriptive brand name inevitably means that you will lose some potential customers because they may end up finding your competitor rather than you. So utilizing a descriptive name is not a good way to capture goodwill or brand value. Looking at the big picture, you will be much better off with a unique brand name than with a descriptive one. Once you have name recognition, trademark law will stop competitors from using a name that is similar to yours and cashing in on your success. This is the purpose of trademarks — to make it less likely that consumers will confuse your business with others.
Names and Brands on the Internet
On the Internet, the trend seems to be choosing generic brand names, so how to you think this translates there? When setting up an online start up, is it wise to choose a generic name? No, it isn’t.
The things that make a brand name good are the same whether it’s on the Internet or not. Even though many people think it is wise to choose generic names — perhaps because they confuse the benefits conferred by search engines of having such a brand name — generic names are actually a poor choice for online and offline brands alike. They will help you short term by offering a description of the business. For instance, people would know something right away about what you are doing if you call your brand Books4Less.com. They may not realize right away that your prices will be low, on the other hand, if your store is named ‘Amazon’. But, as soon as Amazon has proven itself to you, that simple one word name will be far more memorable to you than a vague name like Books4Less.
Why do so many businesses on the Internet choose poor names then? Maybe due to the fact that when the Internet was new and there weren’t many sites established yet, a regular commonplace name was a bonus. You would enter “toys.com” if looking for a site where you could purchase toys. It was similar to an old grocery store. You looked for what you wanted by name. So, the easiest way to let customers know the purpose of a site was to give it a descriptive, common title. The advantages of a descriptive name, though, were no longer valid after the number of sites continued to grow.
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 trying to come up with online trading names, try to imitate the successful Internet businesses by selecting a unique name like Amazon, Yahoo, Dell, Bebo, Facebook and eBay. These are the businesses that have done well and whose names everyone knows, while the plethora of businesses with generic names came and went, even those that had lots of financial backing. All that remains of them is their highly coveted domain names, many of which have had many owners by now, that come up high in search rankings. Books.com, for instance, is a redirect to the main Barnes & Noble site, which boosts their traffic.
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.