Mountain Valley vs. Liquid Death. They both sell water. One sounds refreshing. The other sounds like a rock band or a media company. One tells you where it’s from. The other makes you double-take.
Same product, wildly different runways.
A brand’s name isn’t just its first impression; it’s often its longest-lasting asset.
Positioning may shift. Even the best logos and visuals may evolve. Packaging gets refreshed. Product mixes expand and contract. But a name often outlasts these, meaning a decision made at a company’s inception must survive a future the business can’t fully see yet.
And to make matters more consequential, the rules of that future are being rewritten in real time.
As categories blur and technology helps them move at warp speed, brands that stay relevant can’t afford to stay singular, static, or in their respective lanes. The ones that win are built to move and adapt. They’re building responsive businesses and offerings and becoming cultural lightning rods that cut across generations, moments, and need states.
It’s why an online bookstore is now the infrastructure of modern commerce. Fitness brands are opening hotels. Beauty brands are becoming merch machines. And as it turns out, media companies like Unwell are launching water brands.
These days, the category a brand starts in is rarely the one it stays in.
Which means we’re selecting our most permanent asset in a market defined by constant reinvention. And some brands are naming themselves into corners without realising it.
The great naming trap
Oatly’s name shows what it does clearly (Image credit: Oatly)
Brand names tend to exist on a spectrum from how clearly you describe what you offer (think: Whole Foods) to names with no literal connection to the offering (think: Erewhon).
Beyond clarity and convention, there’s another question that doesn’t get asked enough: how narrow or broad should the name be? It’s a deliberate balance: clarity drives early adoption, but breadth leaves room for growth. This needs to be an intentional, thoughtful step. But when brands skip it, they often pay for it later.
Clear, descriptive names work hard. Dave’s Killer Bread tells you exactly what world it lives in. Oatly leaves little ambiguity about what’s inside the carton. But they’re also making a bet. The more specific the name, the more specific the future you may be locking yourself into.
What if Oatly wants to move into other alt-milks and compete with the likes of Califia Farms and Malk? Or consumers suddenly decide oats are cancelled?
And there’s the trap. The same name that once clearly defined the business is now confining it.
ClassPass began as a fitness brand and has moved into food and beverage (Image credit: ClassPass)
We’re seeing this play out with ClassPass. For years, the name worked beautifully – until the business evolved beyond it. Recently, it expanded into food and beverage, reframing themselves around broader wellness access versus just fitness class access. Strategically, it makes sense. Nominally, they’re stuck.
The issue of whether the expansion is credible aside. Will people think to use the ClassPass app to order a smoothie? The name frames behaviour, and in this case, it’s framing the wrong one.
SoulCycle is a different version of the same trap – except they’re not trying to expand, they’re trying to survive. When boutique spin was hot, the name was an asset. But the category’s been cooling for years, and there’s very narrow territory they can slip into without fighting assumptions baked into their name.
To be clear, a name can’t save a broken business model. But a limiting one can make it harder to grow, evolve and pivot. And in a world where categories and markets shapeshift overnight, flexibility is everything.
For both, the choice is the same: change the name or change perception. Neither is free. Neither is easy. And neither is guaranteed.
Some of the world’s biggest brands have faced this tension:
Dunkin’ dropped the ‘donuts’ (Image credit: Dunkin’)
These weren’t cosmetic updates. They were attempts to manufacture flexibility after the fact. And they cost time, money, and in some cases, enterprise value.
Which brings us to HBO. Remember when I said “longest-lasting asset?” HBO spent years trying to shed theirs. It rebranded to Max, only to quietly add HBO back when audiences refused to follow. Unfortunately, a name change isn’t always a simple escape hatch.
Name of the long game
HBO has had several name changes (Image credit: HBO Max)
So, what if we built that flexibility in from the start? Where businesses ask themselves how far the brand name could take them, not just how well it tells the story of who they are today? It’s the difference between naming the thing you sell and the world you envision.
A brand can start narrow – it’s often the right strategic move. But the name doesn’t have to cement that bet.
That’s not an argument for vagueness or abstraction. It’s an argument for a more durable anchor.
Promo for Uber (Image credit: Uber)
Consider Uber. The name means above, beyond, superior. It’s anchored in a sense of service, not a mode of transport. Which is exactly why it could proliferate into Uber Eats, Uber Freight, and Uber Direct. Their name was never the ceiling; it was the foundation.
In a world where brands become platforms, names need legs. Impossible Foods is named after a mission with no limit – impossibly delicious, impossibly sustainable, impossibly whatever comes next. Vacation sells sunscreen. The name doesn’t, which means a hotel, a clothing line, a podcast – it all fits. And then there’s the goddess of victory. An anchor so durable, Nike could own basketball, skateboarding, golf, and a multi-billion-dollar DTC business naturally.
As categories continue blurring and markets reinvent themselves, one of the riskiest things a brand can do is define itself too narrowly, too early.
That’s why the smartest names aren’t just telling a story about the business, product, or service – they’re making room for the one that doesn’t exist yet.
The Brand Impact Awards 2026 are now open for entries! If you have a standout branding project from the last year that you think deserves recognition, you need to enter the BIAs. You have until July 9 to enter and you can do so on the Brand Impact Awards website.
As a Senior Strategist at CBX, Claire blends insight with instinct, using culture and consumer behaviour as her compass to help brands close the gap between what they say, what they mean, and what they do. Her strategic approach has shaped everything from startups to global brands like Snapchat, Anheuser-Busch, and Kimberly-Clark across food and beverage, wellness, e-commerce, tech, and beyond – helping them build distinctive voices, sharper stories, and stronger connections.
Why your brand name is a well of untapped SEO potential
When I talk about SEO, you probably think about things like backlinks, internal links, and domain authority.
Here’s what you don’t think about: The name of your business.
Unfortunately, however, your business’s name can make a massive difference in how quickly and easily you rank on SERPs.
With a business name that’s friendly to your target keywords, you’ll easily be top of the results. But with one that isn’t, you’ll be on page 15, 50, or 100.
Naturally, you don’t want to be that far down the line.
After all, you’re probably familiar with the importance of building out your SEO strategy as a part of your marketing strategy.
That means if you don’t land on the first page, you can say, “Hasta la vista” to any potential leads.
Now, you understand the importance of SEO.
But, more importantly, you understand how your chosen brand name can make a difference in how you rank in search engines.
With a brand name that is unique, memorable, and keyword-focused, you might just rank among the giants of SEO with far less work.
So how do you choose a name that is unique, memorable, and full of SEO juice?
Well, that’s easier said than done.
So here are the details of how you’re going to pull it off.
1. Make it unique
There are plenty of great brand names out there in the digital world.
Dropbox, Google, Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are just a few of the winners.
But despite the success of those brands and their associated names, you don’t want to try to copy them.
The last thing you want to do is use a business name like Boxdrop, Oogle, Ditred, or Bookface.
Doing so will not only cause potential trademark infringements, it will hurt your business’s trust and make your website look spammy to consumers.
Clearly, that’s not a recipe for success.
Which is exactly why you want to choose a business name that is unique. The more unique it is, after all, the less competition you’ll have in the SERP.
Even though Google, Facebook and the like have great names, you don’t want to compete with them in the rankings, do you?
No, you don’t.
They would win, and you would lose.
So how do you choose a great name without copying someone else?
Then, type in a word that you want your business name to include and click “Generate names.”
I typed in “Shoes.”
This is the screen you’ll see.
Basically, this is a list of available domain names with that word in the title.
No one else is using these names for their website, which should give you a pretty good idea of where the competition lies.
Choose one of the domain names from this list that appeals to you and that you think might be a fit for your business.
For my example, I’m choosing “Shoes Logic.”
Then, go to Google and search for that exact phrase.
Here’s what you’re looking for:
The number of results that came up with that search. The fewer results that the search has, the less competitive it will be when you’re trying to rank your website.
Then you want to glance through the URLs that populate in the results.
Make sure that there aren’t any similar domains to the one you’re looking to use.
You wouldn’t want to find URLs that say “shoelogic.com” or “logicalshoes.com” for instance.
If you find similar URLs, you’ll be facing additional competition for your brand name.
And the less competition you have to deal with, the better.
There’s already plenty of competition in the world of SEO. The last thing you need to do is make it harder for yourself.
So make sure you choose a brand name that is unique enough that no one else is using variations.
That way, when you try to rank for your brand name’s keywords, you’ll easily own the SERP.
But don’t get too ahead of yourself. You also need to check two other vital things before putting the stamp of approval on your business name.
2. Make it memorable
With a brand name that’s memorable, people can easily search for you and find you.
Because let’s be honest, remembering URLs can be a real pain.
You don’t just have to remember the name of the business, but you often have to remember whether the URL was .com, .io, .co, or some other server variation.
The solution for most consumers when they forget the URL is to type the brand’s name into Google.
Then, they click on the result that they believe is your business.
But imagine if you didn’t rank for your own brand name.
How bad would that be?
Or worse yet, imagine that people couldn’t even remember your brand name to search for it.
Yikes.
Clearly, you want to make your brand name memorable so people can easily find you when they’re looking for you.
There are three tried-and-true ways of doing this.
1. Use alliteration – Alliteration is simply choosing two words that start with the same sound. These phrases often roll off the tongue and are easy to remember.
Both of those names are two-syllables, and at least partly for that reason, they are easy to remember.
They also rank better in Google since they have smaller domain names.
Is there a correlation between shorter names and greater success?
Maybe.
3. Make it phonetic – The final way to make your brand name memorable so people can easily find you when they’re looking for you is by making your name completely phonetic.
What does that mean?
It means that your brand name sounds just like it’s spelled.
Go to the tool and type in a business name you’re thinking about using.
I’m going to continue using my example from earlier: shoes logic.
Let’s imagine that I decided that name was unique and memorable enough.
Then, as a final step, I typed it into this tool.
Here’s what comes up.
As you can see, there’s a major problem with this brand name.
Practically no one is searching for it. The good news is that people who do search for it often click. But if no one is searching for “shoes logic,” those clicks don’t really matter as much.
So then I searched for the phrase “shoes for sale.”
That’s a bit better, but the problem here is that the difficulty level is kind of high.
And if I type in “shoes,” then the traffic rises even more, but so does the difficulty level.
Which means there’s a lot of traffic around the keyword “shoes,” but there’s also a lot of competition.
Ideally, you want to choose a name that has a decent amount of traffic and a small amount of competition.
Simply play around with the Keyword Explorer until you find a name.
Eventually, I typed in “sexy shoes” and found what a winner looks like.
Sure. It would be nice if the traffic was a bit higher, but the competition is so low that this name might just work.
Of course, before you commit, you’ll want to make sure that the name you choose is also unique and memorable before buying the domain.
But the trick is to find a business name that will help your SEO because people are already typing the words into Google.
And if you’re the first person to create a domain name around those popular keywords, you’ll have an even better chance of ranking in those searches.
Conclusion
No one ever said that SEO would be easy.
Or if they did, they lied.
The reality is that SEO is challenging enough without you throwing in unnecessary hurdles to jump.
One of those hurdles you might stumble across is choosing a cruddy brand name for your business.
Ideally, you’ll want to choose a brand name that is unique, memorable, and that’s in line with the keywords of the market you want to target.
Then, you’ll be able to climb through the rankings easier.
And your bottom line?
Well, let’s just say your traffic, lead, and revenue generation will increase, just for the cost of a name change.
He is a New York Times best selling author. The Wall Street Journal calls him a top influencer on the web, Forbes says he is one of the top 10 marketers, and Entrepreneur Magazine says he created one of the 100 most brilliant companies. He was recognized as a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by President Obama and a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 35 by the United Nations.
