“Say (my) name, say (the) category” (Destiny’s Child).
When people glance at your brand, you, your website, they will only be thinking “where’s my next biscuit coming from?” (thanks to 
Matt Pattison FRSA for this). They do not want to spend more than 0.0005 seconds working out what bucket to place you in. What category to place you in and whether that can help them.
And that bucket better be blooming tasty.
On our rebrand journey for Outrageous, we did 5 rounds of research. Some of the feedback was brutal. People didn’t know what we did or for whom. It was hard going.
We then showed a range of new names and propositions. Again, heavy incoming fire. It was grisly.
What emerged over a series of months though was that people loved the name Outrageous. They just didn’t understand the second word (‘impact’). Questions came like:
– Does this mean you tell me if my event was liked by participants?
– Can you help me work out how effectively my investments are performing?
ERM, no.
But this was on US. NOT the customers. Love ya. We had wasted our 0.00000003 second opportunity.
Then one person asked this simple question “you do insight research, why are you not mentioning this in your name, marketing materials and more?”
Suddenly it clicked. Say the damn category already.
A few years ago I was lucky to be mentored by the fab Rebecca Harper and Cassandra Stavrou MBE during Global Entrepreneurs’ Week.
Rebecca told us 5 mentees about the difference that adding one word to a packet of popcorn had made to sales. Can you guess what the word was?
POPCORN.
Say the category. Make it easy for people to buy you. Don’t force them to become Sherlock meet Angela Lansbury.
We are about change, charities and insight. Then it all clicked.
Outrageous Insight. Explosive insight research to change the world faster.
Get out of your own way. Listen to the insight. Light the fuse.
