It was once said it takes seven impressions to make a memory, but in today’s attention economy, it is likely closer to ten or fifteen.
Either way, there’s a cost to being seen, and a return on that investment when enough aggregate to form a memory.
This is what makes memorability an economic engine.
The Return on a Good Name
If your brand or product name is designed to be sticky, and it only takes five or even three impressions to make a memory, you’ve just changed the math.
Fewer impressions. Lower cost. Stronger recall.
Now consider that impact over time.
Think about your name circulating in aggregate over many prospects, clients, customers, guests, and communities. It shows up in conversation, in search, in recommendations. Over time, even a small improvement in memorability compounds.
A name that is just 10% more memorable can return far more than expected.
The question, then, is what makes a name easier to remember in the first place.
Memorable Names Begin with Stories
One of the central elements of good naming is being unafraid of the story.
We start with stories and metaphors, and build from there. Story gives people something to hold onto. It creates association. It embeds relevancy, without obviousness.
It gives the opportunity to talk about the name with people who want to do business with you and build meaning through conversation.
Take Notion for instance, a software platform to manage complexity in chaos starts with an idea, a unit of thought … a notion. Warby Parker sounds like your most creative friend, both words come from characters by writer Jack Kerouac, Warby Pepper and Zagg Parker. You can almost hear someone saying, “Are those Warbys?”
Brand names that sit atop a treasure trove of metaphors, stories and ways of telling the brand story, all starting with a conversational name.
Every Character Counts
It is known that the more valuable letters in Scrabble are also so in names, because they appear less often in language. When it comes to memorability, the little things matter a lot: Spelling, pronunciation, length, even visual processing of wordforms all contribute meaningfully to how a name is remembered.
OXO offers a great example. Aside from its own brand name story –– its products were designed for the founder’s wife and “hugs and kisses” is a loving message–– However you choose to pronounce it, it’s incredibly short, abstract, and intriguing on all levels. And Google created a new word borrowing from a mathematical term but making it much more interesting to say and even search.
The Head Start Most Teams Miss
Building a valuable brand is a deliberate creative and scientific process. Starting with a highly memorable name is the head start many teams overlook because it seems arbitrary or secondary, but it is neither.
A memorable name does not just sound better. It simply works harder for you.
Across this series we have explored three criteria––relevance, protectability, and memorability–– and the careful balancing of the three. If you are unsure where your name stands, it is worth asking a simple question:
Do people remember it when you are not in the room?
If the answer is unclear, there may be an opportunity to strengthen it.
And if the answer is yes, you have something worth building on.
If you would like to explore that further, or simply compare notes on your own naming experience, we are always open to the conversation.
