The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding: How to Build a Product or Service into a World-Class Brand

by Al Ries

What you should generally do is take a regular word and use it out of context to connote the primary attribute of your brand.

Sometimes you can carve out a brand name by cutting a generic in half. This often has the further advantage of creating a short, distinctive, easy-to-remember brand name. Intelligent Chip Company is a lousy brand name, but Intel Corp. is terrific.

Simple observation will demonstrate how seldom customers will use a company name . . . when they have been given a viable brand name to use.

With this caveat in mind, a company is a company as long as the name is not being used as a brand. A brand is a brand. There is a difference. A company is the organization that manufactures or produces the brand. It is not the brand itself. Microsoft isn’t Word, Procter & Gamble isn’t Tide.

Microsoft produces many products, one of which is Word. Procter & Gamble produces many products, one of which is Tide. While this makes sense, it’s not usually the best branding strategy.

the best branding strategy should be to use the company name...