The Significance of Brand Names and Logos

Neha Chobey, INN/Gwalior, @infodeaofficial

Brand names and logos of any company or organization are quite the trendsetters. They are the key identity to any brand and hence play a very vital role in its journey i.e. from its inception to rise. This section of business has always been very interesting and unpredictable. One day the word ‘apple’ means just a fruit but all this while it has become not just mine but also the world’s favorite electronics company and even a status symbol.

Have you ever wondered why cell phone brands are named after fruits like apple or even blackberry? Or maybe what those four intersecting circles have to do with a car like Audi? And wait, how did the word Tinder become related to a dating site?

There are a lot crazy as well as fun stories behind our globally famous brands and how they got their names. And also, what they mean. Few of them are listed below-

Starbucks

What would come to your mind if I say Starbucks? Obviously! Coffee, right? It’s the most famous and favorite brand worldwide known for its self-made coffee with tons of variation. But how is the word Starbucks related to a coffee shop or on that note any beverage?

Well the three founders of Starbucks Jerry Baldwin, Gordon Bowker and Zev Siegl believed that words beginning with the letters “st” were incredibly powerful and on their journey to find a name for their brand they came across to a mining town named Starbo.  Which instantly reminded one of its founders Mr. Bowker of Starbucks which was a character from the classic novel ‘Moby Dick’. And there it was, ‘Starbucks’ which was a tribute to Moby dick and association with the romance of the high seas of the early coffee traders.

This was pretty interesting, no wonder why coffee and literature goes very well together.

Tinder

Tinder, when it comes to English means something which is dry and catches fire easily. Two branches rubbing each other on a very hot day are tinder, dry leaves are tinder. But in today’s generation it doesn’t seems like this is true, right? (Swipe right if you think I’m right or you can even super like me.)

Well the owner of this online dating application, tinder, said that they really like idea behind the name which is to create a spark or to start fire. Which, according to them, was quite a fun name and suited the intention of the app. Now we rightly know why we have all fiery designs on it. And, initially in 2012 it was named matchbox but soon the name was dropped. But then one day, when its creators were in LA reading out words meaning same as fire. They came across to the word tinder, this instantly grabbed their attention. And it was decided to name the app, Tinder!

Apple

Before creating the multinational electronics company, Apple. Its co-founder Steve Jobs spent time working at an apple farm. At that time, he was on one of his fruitarian diets and while coming back home from the apple farm the name apple fascinated him. And he felt that the name was approachable and fun. In the era of having more complex names and logos Steve wanted it to be simple and fun. The motive behind a bitten apple was so that people don’t confuse it with a cherry.

Google

Do you know the name of the search engine that all of our lives depend on was the result of a spelling mistake? Google, the world’s most popular search engine which answers our every query from the silliest to the most serious one was not actually named as Google by its founders. In fact, initially it was named Backrub, which the company soon decided to change. After various suggestions they wanted to name it Googol, however, it just happened that it was misspelled as Google. And there it was our life savior Google.

Amazon

Amazon was originally named ‘Cadabra’ after the famous magical spell abracadabra but his lawyer told him to change the name because any connection to magic would not be good for the company. And soon it’s CEO Jeff Bezos and his then wife searched on to find another fun but impactful name for the company. While looking through the words from the letter, they came up with the word Amazon which seemed perfect because he was building the world’s largest bookstore and Amazon is the world’s largest river.

And following the ‘world’s largest’ tag Amazon with time became the world’s largest online company. The arrow in its logo which moves from ‘A’ to Z, hinting that the store has everything from A to Z denotes the vastness of the store.

 

 

 

 

 

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