Choose Your Brand Name Wisely
Earlier this week, I wrote a post called Color Meanings Around the World where I talked about the various meanings of colors in different parts of the world. Today I found a great example at Franchise Pick that demonstrates the importance of understanding who your potential customers are based on where you do business.
My fellow b5media blogger, Sean Kelly, wrote about Beaners Coffee on Franchise Pick last week. Beaners Coffee is a coffee shop chain based in Michigan. The company has 77 franchise stores in nine states, and they’re growing quickly. Before they get much bigger, they decided to change their company’s name. It turns out that the original owners didn’t know that beaners is considered to be an offensive term among Hispanic customers. Beaners Coffee will become Biggby Coffee by January 31, 2008.
Certainly, the company is doing the right thing, but this is an important lesson in branding. Research your brand name before you launch it. Taking the time to do the necessary research up front can save you money in the long-run. Imagine the costs associated with changing the Beaners name to Biggby in 77 stores. I’m sure that’s not a small investment. I commend the executives for making the right decision and changing the name despite the cost.
The second lesson we can learn from this example is this: even if you only do business in your own country, you need to be sure your brand speaks to the various sub-cultures within your country.
What other lessons can you think of that Brandcurve readers can learn from the Beaners Coffee brand name example?
Tags: advertising, Beaners-Coffee, Biggby-Coffee, Branding, Communication, MarketingRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Brand Name, brand
4 opinions for Choose Your Brand Name Wisely
Mary Jo
Sep 29, 2007 at 9:45 am
Another recent name change and re-branding effort: Mkt10 to Jobfox.
Kelly McCausey
Oct 5, 2007 at 7:23 am
I heard about this over the summer and we chatted about it on my morning show with moms around the country. It was about split in half as far as who was aware that ‘beaner’ was a slur, so I can understand how they made that mistake.
But Biggby? What the heck is that?
10 Cool Marketing Tricks to Boost Your Small Business | Logo Design Works
Oct 5, 2007 at 1:29 pm
[…] Curve recommends that you research your brand name before you launch it. It will definitely save you money in the long […]
10 Marketing Tricks to Boost Your Small Business
Oct 6, 2007 at 9:07 pm
[…] a post I wrote for Brandcurve called Choose Your Brand Name Wisely was featured in a post on the Logo Design Works blog called 10 Cool Marketing Tricks to Boost Your […]
Have an opinion? Leave a comment: