The Problem with Generic Names

Navin Harish
Aug 23, 2017 · 1 min read

“How do you come to office?”
“I take a Shuttle.”
“The office shuttle?”
“No.”
“Ola Shuttle?”
“No, S.H.U.T.T.L. it is a shuttle service like Ola.”
“Oh, OK”

Someone felt clever by taking the name of the category for their business but didn’t realise that the name will become a problem for them. When you have a name that is generic like the Shuttl which is actually the product or service category, it becomes difficult to differentiate yourself. Simple names are good, apple is an example. However not even Steve Jobs could have made a company name like “Computer” as cool as “apple”.

The other extreme of choosing a generic name for your company is having a popular product that becomes synonymous of the product. Jeep, Kleenex, Xerox are a few example. Closer home, Matador is a good example. While some enjoy this position, others fight hard to separate their name from the product category like Xerox did when they ran a campaign saying “Xerox is not something you can buy for 35 paise” and quite understandably because they didn’t want to limit themselves to copiers only.

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