As a young bachelor dude living off take-out food, I raised my hand and expressed confusion about why anyone would care about such features. Price was what counted, I confidently declared. SOOOO quickly, I was taken out back and shot. Many in the room jumped on me and expressed that they cared deeply about the features of the dish-washing detergent. The professor used me as the prime example of the trap of thinking YOU are the customer.

Almost everyone who designs products and starts companies fall into the trap of designing with your own emotions and needs in mind. Even after my highly-public b-school fail, I fall into the trap. But dammit, unless you are Steve Jobs (who has the rare skill of knowing what the customer wants), stop it!

• Wendy’s: $315M
• Marketing on Microsoft Vista: $500M
• Presidential Campaign Spending (both parties): $1B
• AT&T: $2.25B
• P&G: $3.3B

The author argues that campaign spending is a bargain:

Given the magnitude of the decision and the cost of any branding campaign, the election industry’s spending of a billion dollars (over a four-year period) hardly seems overblown—especially for candidates who race onto the field with little or no brand identity.

Just like that, a deeply entrenched belief has been shattered. It is a good day.

UPDATE:
In the comments, Dave notes that the Biz360 technology shows that Hillary and Obama each got $1B of media coverage in Jan alone (thanks Dave).  It’s true, Tide does not get that kind of coverage.

I enjoy the process very much. I’ve done it before. I’ve read a pretty good book (Wordcraft, by Alex Frankel); I’ve thought hard about them.

For tech companies, the big problem is, of course, URL availability and it is an extreme limiting factor to naming. The naturally limited inventory and the squatters forces unnatural names. (If you are lucky and the URL for your preferred name is not taken, then it is likely that the trademark is open as well, but you can do a quick check on that).  Venture capitalist Fred Wilson has a post about domain name extensions that is worth reading.  Since my blog is named Seedround, I will disagree with his statement that a name is worth $25,000.

So what is the creative process for finding a name? Don’t really have one, sorry. This is one of those “lightning can strike anywhere” projects.

Dan and I named Milktruck while he was keeping me company while I was waiting for a train. I forgot how we can up with Biz360 (but that was a codename that stuck; or more accurately, nothing better was ever suggested). Boxxet was thought of late one night (while I was alone) after weeks and weeks going through hundreds of names. I had to force myself to walk away from the project several times just to regain energy.

There’s no magic for me; lots of ideas (some awful, some great but unavailable, some good); lots of research; then a bit of testing with your inner circle (after all, why share bizarre names with too many people?).

• Can they say it?
• Can they spell it?
• Are they going to, more likely than not, remember it?

Yes to all? Wow! Two of three? Take it.

Does it pass the ridiculous test? Then go. Of course, you can also not pass the ridiculous test and still do very well (see Yahoo and Google).

There will be people who love/hate/like/dislike/don’t care about your name. You will not get agreement; you should not bother to get agreement.

I happen to like names that are descriptive or provoke the images I would like the company’s users/clients to see:

• Milktruck: This was a “push” Web application. So Milktruck automatically brought you fresh stuff every day!
• Biz360: This was an analytic application that analyzed all the news that happened around your company and industry everyday. Biz360 gave you a 360 degree view of your business.
• Boxxet: The image of the “best-of” is reflected in a “box set,” thus the name Boxxet. People who do not like the name right away will often come back and tell me that they later changed their mind.

We went through a LOT of names before we hit Boxxet. Many were awful. Here are some (no snickering, please): Onrego, civicjam, thelotofus, LoveOrHateIt, TheWordFor, REcolon, InRegardTo, ThisIsSwell, RiffWire. I’ll leave it to you to figure them out (at one point or another, they all had some meaning to me).

You may ask: why not go through a naming firm for such an important branding move?  To that, I point to this article that I first saw on Guy Kawasaki’s blog.

The man has boundless energy and is THE definition of the Tech Evangelist.  He just started a new blog Let the Good Times Roll and, so far, he is amazingly proficient (I hope he is not setting too fast a pace with his postings).  I recommend entrepreneurs as well as tech marketers read him.   I also recommend his book, The Art of the Start.

Sometimes, I feel he goes a bit overboard with his rah-rah.  But he is always entertaining and full of insights.  He easily makes it on my reading list. I now count myself as a long-time admirer of Guy Kawasaki.