A mini masterclass in brand naming

Recently, I found out why Bluetooth is called Bluetooth. What a story.

The brand’s website actually has a section called Origin of the Name, so it’s obviously something that comes up a lot.

In a nutshell, the folks who invented Bluetooth only ever intended it as a placeholder name. It comes from the nickname of King Harald ‘Bluetooth’ Gormsson. He’s known for unifying Denmark and Norway, and having a dead (blue) tooth. Jim Kardach, one of the founders, has been quoted as saying: “King Harald Bluetooth…was famous for uniting Scandinavia, just as we intended to unite the PC and cellular industries with a short-range wireless link.”

In the end, the more serious names they came up with (RadioWire or PAN – Personal Area Network. Snore.) never stuck. PAN was popular, but already had so many hits on the internet. On the other hand, Bluetooth had no trademark issues and it caught on straight away.

In the end, they doubled down and chose a bind rune of our old friend Harald’s initials as the Bluetooth logo.

I love this because:

1. The quirky option reigned supreme
2. It’s super brave to call your brand something that random
3. It totally paid off

Why does it work?

·         It’s super quirky, but it’s made up of two words we already know, making it easy to remember.

·         It feels random and that feels brave and disruptive, like the technology itself.

·         But if you dig a little, it’s not random. It perfectly represents the technology once you know the story.

·         It was a huge success: a word (like Google) that has slipped into our everyday lexicon despite meaning absolutely nothing to most of us just a few years ago.

Make it work for you

Let’s say you’re naming your new product or service. Perhaps you’ve launched a power hour call and you want to call it something other than simply ‘power hour’. Try playing with a few Bluetooth-inspired ideas.

1.      Create a quirky combination of everyday words.

o   Write a random list of words and try out different combinations until you find something catchy. Use random word generators to start you off.

o   Or, for a more focused approach, pick some themes (like trees or colours) and populate those buckets with words to see if anything lights a spark.

2.      Choose the name of someone or something that represents you, your personality or the service or product you’re selling.

o   Think about the characteristics of your product or service. Is it efficient? Expensive? Inspiring?

o   Now try representing that with different words. Try a noun, a verb, an adjective. Now try an animal, a household object, a profession.

o   Look through popular culture, history, music or life experience to find a comparable situation or experience that could bring your product or service to life in your customers’ minds.

3.      Play with sound to make a memorable name.

o   Bluetooth works because it repeats the ‘oo’ vowel sound.

o   Can you use alliteration either at the start or in the middle of your product or service name to achieve the same effect?

Once you’ve got your name, use it on repeat so that it becomes familiar to your customer.

If you’d like to chat more about naming for your business, I’d love to hear from you.