It’s not always your product, but what you call it that garners the most.

Next spring, on the night of the first full moon, you cast your eyes toward the sky, and there it is: “Radio Shack.”

The words may be there thanks to a British advertising agency that recently announced plans to use lasers to project ads onto the moon. But perhaps the actual words will be “R Shack,” because the retailers’ marketing executives might have realized something before then: The company’s name is too long.

Those executives will see that newspapers are filled with blurbs, rather than stories; that celebrities have only one name (Tiger, Britney, J.Lo); and that companies like FedEx decided the extra letters were several too many. Perhaps they will also recall the days when Harley was Harley Davidson and Sears was Sears Roebuck.

The Radio Shack executives would be right. Today, with messages everywhere (each of us are exposed to 3,200 a day, according to a recent New York Times statistic) and more products and services crying for attention (300 new books published each day, for example), getting heard has become much harder. Only a succinct and vivid message has a chance.

The age of Yahoo!

Shrewd businesses recognize that, as Yahoo! clearly demonstrates, brands have increased in influence. Consider the mutual fund industry. The number of funds sextupled between 1984 and 1999, and today exceeds 8,000. Yet the Big Five-Janus, Fidelity, Vanguard, Pimco and Alliance, which account for less than 1 percent of America’s fund families-capture 85 percent of the net cash flow.

You might say, “But those funds perform!” because you assume they do. You are not alone. When interviewed, Americans say that their country’s three best performing funds are Janus, Fidelity and Vanguard. Yet during the most recent survey period, those funds ranked first, 35th and 37th, respectively. In 1999, BlackRock was America’s 8th-best-performing fund, but only took in $5 million-a dollar for every $2,800 that Fidelity and Vanguard each netted during that time.

Today more than ever, the words of the song apply: to know them is to love them. When we compare name familiarity with regard, the numbers are nearly identical. For example: If 67 percent of prospects are familiar with your name, then 61 percent to 72 percent will say they think highly of you. Conclusion? The better known you are, the better you appear.

Faced with these numbers, it becomes obvious that your company name is critical, not least of all because some names are much easier to recall. It’s not surprising that the giants of the Internet-Yahoo! and Google-also have the two most memorable names, while Lycos, AltaVista and WebCrawler languish behind.

To emphasize the power of a brand name alone: The foremost experts at Internet searches-America’s special and corporate librarians-long preferred AltaVista, the best search engine available. But no one else did, because most people cannot tell what is “the best.” Even at Microsoft, home of many of the world’s most technically sophisticated customers, staffers, in an informal survey, preferred Yahoo! by more than 10 to 1 over AltaVista.

So how do you become a household name? By being brief, odd and sensory. And how long is too long? At 14 letters and five syllables, Federal Express was six letters and two syllables too long, their executives decided. Eight letters and three syllables appear to be the maximum; memorability starts collapsing fast after that point.

Extreme brand names

Considerable research also shows that the brain best remembers extremes. The more unusual the name, the more deeply it imprints. Nike demonstrates this-who except students of mythology had ever heard of nike (meaning “victory” in Greek) before? Kinkos also demonstrates this nicely, dominating a category filled with names like KwikPrint and Insty-Prints.

This phenomenon applies to professional services, too. You have most likely heard of McKinsey, Bain, Omnicom and Ogilvy. Each name is unusual-you associate those words with no other firm-and each owns a powerful niche in its market.

Finally, sensory quality enhances memorability. Yahoo! and Google demonstrate this by engaging our ears. The double “oo” sound is widely regarded as the funniest in our language-as you know from words like kazoo, boob and Dr. Seuss’s memorable Oobleck. Washington Mutual now identifies itself in many communications as “WaMu,” illustrating the value of both brevity and the sensory appeal of that “oo” sound.

You also see smart marketers rely on another sense-sight-in crafting memorable names. Consider the software company Red Pepper, a name that appeals to two senses, sight and taste. In June 1997, I found myself in Palo Alto and ran into Monte Zweben, who founded Red Pepper and had just merged it with PeopleSoft, garnering millions in the deal. I asked Monte what percentage of the deal he attributed to the name. “Most of it,” he said.

The name, in fact, changed him. When Monte started his next company, he spent weeks with his wife trying to devise an equally unusual and sensory name. Frustrated in the effort, Monte and his wife went out for drinks. There at the bar, inspiration struck: Blue Martini. That summer, Monte took Blue Martini public and, at $12 a share, became more than $10 million richer.

Zweben’s and WaMu’s daring is not common. Too many executives strive mightily for safe names that seem appropriate and descriptive. The first two executives to consider the CEO position at Yahoo!, as one telling example, turned the position down. The first insisted the name was too frivolous. The second was more willing. He said he would take the job-if they removed the exclamation mark. Surely it’s inappropriate to go into a Fortune 100 company selling products called Red Pepper. Yet Zweben did just that-just as WaMu sells something sober and important, retail banking, with a brand that sounds remarkably like Toys “R” Us.

Even so, perhaps you might say, “We’re a relatively small business. Our world isn’t like Nike’s. Brand doesn’t matter.” But I have a story that may refute your doubt.
In 1994, after my article “Why Plans Fail?” created nationwide attention for the Minneapolis business publication in which it ran, the editor called me with a request. “Do a story on brands. Our readers would be very interested.”

I declined. At the time, I thought branding was the last thing his readers, primarily small to midsize business owners and executives, should worry about. I also suspected that this editor wanted me to promote branding because it would encourage people to advertise-including in his magazine.

The next day, I visited the region’s best intellectual property attorney and asked him why he was losing pitches to new clients. “When I put my business card down on the table,” he answered, “it doesn’t make a sound. When an attorney from one of the Big Three in town drops his card, it lands with a thud.” He was speaking metaphorically, of course, but he was witnessing a common phenomenon: Brand trumps performance. In this case, the Big Brand law firm was winning the business, even though its IP department was weak.

Two days later, a midsize HR consulting firm called. Their story was the same. Their professional peers regarded this firm as the best in their specialty. But prospects, even when told this, assumed the larger, better-known firm was larger and better-known for a reason. Prospects chose the brand, not the best quality.

Three days later, I had another identical experience, so I decided to make an unsurprising call. I returned to my editor and said, “Let me rethink this branding thing.” I have been rethinking it ever since.

Quality matters, of course. But brands, especially in this age of information overload, often matter more. The name you craft for your business is your first step-no, leap-to reaping the remarkable rewards that can follow. 

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harry beckwith directs Beckwith Partners (beckwithpartners.com), an international positioning and branding firm in Minneapolis. Email Harry at editor@executivetravelmag.com.