EA - It’s not effective to call everything effective and how (not) to name a new organisation by James Odene [User-Friendly]

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: It’s not effective to call everything effective and how (not) to name a new organisation, published by James Odene [User-Friendly] on September 15, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. User-Friendly is an EA-focussed marketing agency supporting organisations with a wide range of marketing, branding and communications requirements. As such, we come across many misconceptions regarding what the criteria should be for a successful brand and try to mitigate the movement from continuously making the same mistakes. It is our aim moving forward to not only support organisations with their marketing, branding and communications needs, but to use this platform to bring well-established, robust, industry-standard marketing principles into this space, to ensure that all EA marketing is as impactful as possible. As the movement rapidly grows, many new organisations are emerging each month, all in need of a distinctive brand and name. I will use this forum entry to highlight some common mistakes when naming an organisation and share key ways to ensure that your chosen name will work for you, not against you. The number one job of a brand name is to be distinctive, not descriptive. Think about the biggest and most successful brands out there; Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft - none of which use their name to describe their service or product. The brand name isn’t a product description, it’s a mark of identification, a decision simplifier, a way of narrowing down the decision field for your target audience in a way that makes sure you’re the one they think of. The Von Restorff Effect (the cognitive bias towards things that stand out) should be considered your best friend when it comes to branding. Do you know why Apple was named Apple, and not ‘Effective Computer Solutions’? Because it was a distinct and simplistic choice, far more memorable than anything that may have explained the product. It was also Job’s contention that they would benefit from a company name beginning with ‘A’ as it would appear earlier in the phonebook than a competitor. Overly simplistic right? Maybe not. Comically, Apple was actually initially called, ‘Apple Computer Co’, but as the only distinct element - Apple stuck and the rest was binned. Play where you can own the field Okay, so you’re starting a new consultancy organisation, why not call it, for example, ‘Effective Consultancy’? I’ll use this example as a springboard to both express why this might not be a good idea, and suggest alternative criteria to consider when choosing a name. This name is not distinct or memorable This name will be far less ‘sticky’ than something more distinct. The primary role of a brand is to drive top of mind and support organisations to win against a huge host of competition for the attention of your target audience. Our brains are misers, they like easy decisions, and often, what comes to mind first or easiest is more likely to be chosen (see more on system 1 and 2 thinking). Sure, this name explains the service, but will it be the first thing that comes to mind when I come to needing this service? It is less likely than if the name was more distinct? As this movement grows, and there are more and more organisations using ‘Effective this’ and ‘Effective that’, the name becomes increasingly muddied, blurred and entangled in a host of very similar sounding names. This is not helpful to either the success of the individual organisation nor the success of the EA movement as a whole. The name is not ownable Not only will this organisation struggle to carve out its own unique place in the mind of the target audience, but equally the organisation will see the same challenge within the brands online presence. If all ‘Effective X’s’ try to optimise their SEO and run Google ads (both of which they almost certainly should be doing)...