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Why You Shouldn’t Use Numbers Or Special Characters To Your Brand Name…

“A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it is—it is what consumers tell each other it is.” – Scott Cook

As we always insist, brand naming is an important process that makes your business a successful one. If you choose a successful brand name it becomes the first step of a successful business journey. As the quotation suggests, if you need your brand name to be a word of mouth, your brand name must be a perfect pick.

In this article, we are going to discuss how important it is to avoiding numeric characters and special characters in your brand name.

What Are The Disadvantages Of Including Numbers And Special Characters To Your Brand Name?

  • Hard To Memorize And Pronounce

When a brand name consists of numbers and special characters other than letters it is hard to memorize and pronounce. In a way, we all are customers, and have you ever tried to remember a brand name that is not attractive, too long, and with many letters or special characters? I don’t think so. When it comes to the brand names with special characters memorizing and pronouncing is even harder. So think more than once if you are planning to include numbers and special characters to your brand name.

  • Hard To Understand

Brand names with numbers or special characters confuse the customers. It makes the customer less understandable and there is a high possibility of choosing another brand name instead of yours.

  • Less Attractive

 When a brand name consists of numbers and special characters it makes the brand name less eye-catching. For example, Google05@, Google2.0, Google, Go#gle, %Google88 what is the most attractive brand name for your eye? Mostly you select the third one, Google. Because all the other brand names include numbers and special characters.

  • Missing Brand Message

Most of the businessmen include numbers or special characters to the brand name to convey more information about their products, services, or company. But mostly in this case they fail because for the customers, it means nothing more than the numbers or special characters. No one searches for the information that you are trying to hide behind the numbers or special characters. So adding numbers or special characters to the brand name is not a clever idea.

What Are The Popular Brand Names With Numbers Or Special Characters And Why These Disadvantages Don’t Affect Them But You?

  • 21st Century Fox- American Multinational Mass Media Company, founded in 1980
  • 7Up –     American soft drink brand founded in 1986
  • 7 Eleven- American Convenience store chain founded in 1927
  •  3M-   American Multinational Conglomerate company founded in 1902

 

These are some of the popular brand names with numbers and they do well in the market. But how? I have stated the founding years of each company and by that time the competition in the industry was way less compared to the present. So creating a customer base was easy for these companies as the products were new and they did not have to struggle over creating an effective brand name like nowadays.

If You Are Targeting Chinese, Japanese Or Korean Markets…

It is okay to use numeric and special characters to the brand name if you are targeting Chinese, Japanese, and Korean markets.

There are many similarities between these three languages. If you take a look at some brand names in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean markets you will notice many brand names consist of numbers. There are mainly two reasons for including numbers to the brand names in these countries. One is in these languages numbers have meanings. The second reason is the results of a study have proven that Chinese, Japanese and Korean customers recognize some numbers as lucky numbers such as 8. So as it is all about attracting customers to the brand name and creating a brand identity in the market, you can use numbers in your brand name when it comes to these markets.

This is Why You Need To Think Twice If You Select A Brand Name With Numbers Even If You Are Targeting Chinese, Japanese, Or Korean Markets…

A famous American soft drink brand 7up faces a problem when they are introducing their business to China. They found out, 7up means death through drinking in Shanghai, which has a negative meaning. This is why I stated you need to be more careful when dealing with numbers. There are different meanings for the numbers in different countries. Make sure your brand name does not generate negative connotations in any language as it affects your brand identity when you expand the business to other countries.

To Which Part You Can Use Numbers In The Brand Name Process?

As you can see, using numeric characters and special characters for a brand name is not advisable, but if you have an unavoidable desire to put numbers in your brand name you can use them for the sub-brand names, for example, Apple. Usually, they name their iPhones with numbers, iPhone 7, iPhone 8, iPhone 11, iPhone 12, etc.