Tuesday, August 29, 2006

rightsleeve.com - what's in a name

I get asked a few times a week about where the name Right Sleeve came from. Like most cool names (well, we think it's cool at least), it came from random inspiration. It also follows some basic common sense rules about how peoples' minds work.

1. Come up with something that people can spell (but I am constantly amazed by the few people who spell it "wright sleeve" - okay make sure 95% of the population can spell it).

2. Come up with something kind of quirky that people will remember. ABC Promotions is lame (not sure if ABC exists, though I am sure it does). I believe they have a much harder job ahead of them - even if they are great people that provide a great product.

3. Come up with something that has its own unique url. Web sites with hyphens or descriptors like "marketing" or "world" or "inc" are just lame. Sorry. Old brands usually suffer this fate when they venture online.

4. If you can loosely relate your name to what you do, all the better. We sell a lot of apparel. Logos are embroidered or screen printed on different parts of our apparel (left chest, right sleeve, lower left hem, right cuff, etc). There's our loose connection.

5. I believe the best and most memorable brand names in today's new economy are quirky and offbeat. Google, Boing Boing, Amazon, Flickr (though this hard to spell), Yahoo, Expedia, etc etc. These are hard names to forget.

6. Don't take yourself too seriously. Pick a name. Make sure people can spell it and remember it and then get on with your business.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Seth Godin does a piece on this subject too (in his book "small is the new big"). I think you're doing a great job on the brand, which will eventually eclipse the name anyway (Yahoo!??, Coke, Proctor & Gamble...).