Today, no matter how big or small the name-identity, it must face some of the principle Laws of Corporate Naming to cope with brand new challenges of corporate-sobriety.
A corporate image and its name must offer a credible personality to its customers and shareholders alike; unless a corporate name is for a circus, the customers are seeking value, shareholders protection of their assets and neither a monkey show.
A business name of any serious enterprise must have an alpha-character to qualify and gain respect projecting sound personality, honesty, integrity, reliability and stability. No room for randomly picked wild names: “Globe-a-Con”, “Blacktower”, “Tomorrow Inc.”, “Guarantee Inc” or just “Omelet”.
Cute, pretentious or humorous names are out. Difficult and obscure names only confuse customers. Looks-alike or sounds-alike names only kill marketing efforts. Twisted spellings hurt search-ability. With major bankruptcies all over, the other innocent businesses with similar names are getting trapped.
Currently among the modernised world, the credibility of financial services has gone to the bottom, as false claims to exotic superiority failed to match the unexplainable performance. So too are the related sectors, impacting doubts about everything, and gone are the so-cherished and -respected images of the past corporate identities of the past from hard-core manufacturing to incredible services. Where and when will this train stop?
Alphabet soup
Last decade, most banks simply adapted the initialisation of their long twisted names and clearly short-changed themselves by eliminating any distinct identity or a respectable image. The analysis of the top 1000 banks of the world is nothing but the most thick, creamy alphabet soup one can dip into. Almost all of them suddenly decided in unison to simply just become initially named banks and now they are all just a bank, falling and crumbling under the stress tests.
When, if ever, the next round of a run on a major American or British bank could occur, it will cause havocs for the other hundreds of innocent financial institutions which are still holding a very clean and sober affair.
Whether the board likes it or not, most corporate boardrooms are extremely scared to open a debate on this name image issue while this meltdown is taking this name identity crisis to the very top.
A survey of major corporations around the world shows 87% of corporate names are seriously identical to other business names, causing confusion and losing name-equity in the marketplace. The sooner this is addressed, the better.
