Using Alliteration to Create a Cool Company Name
When naming a company, one of the most important branding criteria is memorability – the likelihood that a customer will retain and recall the business name. The more “sticky” the brand name, the greater the recall. One of the stickiest techniques in company naming is the use of alliteration (both words starting with the same letter.) It seems the human brain enjoys this linguistic treat, evidenced by the fact that so many of today’s most famous brands make use of it. Here are just a few examples…
- Best Buy
- Coca-Cola
- Dunkin’ Donuts
- LifeLock
- PayPal
We made use of this technique with one of our clients… Park Place Garage. Not only did the name have alliteration with the two “P”s, but it also contained a double entendre (Park Place is both a place to park a car, and a name associated with high end real estate.) These types of names of creative company names engage the customers brains on multiple levels, improving the chance of retention. It also helps to have the same number of syllables, which is why all five of the above examples are near perfect examples of high recall branding. PayPal and Coca-Cola also begin each word in their names with the same two letters. Now that’s brilliant branding. Close seconds go to…
- Blackberry
- Blockbuster
- Krispy Kreme
- Sir Speedy
- Pip Printing
In the case of Park Place garage, we added rhyming in the tagline to make the name stick like… well… Gorilla Glue™! The end product was Park Place… “The Ultimate Garage Space.” So in this one instance you have alliteration, a double entendre and rhyming –in essence, a company naming trifecta! A recent example of the effective use of alliteration in company naming is Sole Society, a start up company we featured in our “Brilliant Brand of the Week.” This can’t be achieved in every single instance, and it’s just one of a number of good company naming strategies, but it’s an effective one. So if you are looking to rename or rebrand your company, consider alliteration as one way to Supersize™ your brand’s impact.
