The art of choosing a company name.

Choosing a name for a new business is both exciting and terrifying.  But getting the name right and for it to be memorable and effective is an art.

You may not have heard of Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering, Brad’s Drink, Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web?

But instead if I was to say what they are called today: Sony, Pepsi and Yahoo, I have no doubt that these will all resonate.

And who can forget Marathon, Opal Fruits and Jif - Snickers, Starburst and Cif?   

But it’s interesting that all these brands started life with a different, and more complicated, name.  

Indeed the latest trend for tech startups and one that has become the norm is to drop a vowel: originally Flicker, the photosharing website, couldn’t secure the same website domain, so went to Flickr.

Tumblr, the blogging site, supposedly said their argument for dropping their ‘e’ was because “Tumbler.com looks…stupid.”  Others who have followed suit include: Blendr, Pixlr, and Readr.

The missing ‘e’ has become a trademark for a trendy new tech company.

And in 2012, high street bookshop Waterstone's announced it was dropping the apostrophe from its name to make it more "versatile" for online use, and caused debate around Sainsbury’s and McDonald’s!

But how do you go about choosing a name that has impact, stand out, and reflects your services or products?

Patrick, who is my motorsport engineer husband, and I were in ‘new company name predicament’ just last month.

Patrick has worked in motorsport for the last 20 years both inhouse at various F1 teams, and as “Lane-Nott Track Support”, and whilst the world of motorsport isn’t directly linked to my line of business at “O Consultancy”, where my clients are predominately professional services and property companies looking for branding/marketing and PR advice, his knowledge and experience when it comes to data, software, analytics and web/emarketing is second to none.

So we have merged our businesses and set up our first company.

But we couldn't really call ourselves P&O Consultancy - that name has already set sail!

Last year, I took Carter Jonas, the national property consultancy, through a national brand refresh.

But the value and equity in their established and respected name meant that it was a ‘brand essence and look and feel’ refresh rather than a complete rebrand, unlike when Kraft went to Mondelēz, and Orange to EE.

So what is the name of our new consulting company?  Well, we’re officially and so very proud to be launching Spacecraft Consulting Ltd, bringing O Consultancy and Lane-Nott Track Support together.

We loved “Spacecraft” for what they do: Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, earth observation, meteorology, navigation, and planetary exploration; and we bring together into one vessel: brand, digital, communications, engineering, data, telemetry, and technology to offer each client an intelligent and simple answer, one that works for their needs.

We will be delivering many different and innovative consulting services to our clients and customers, and tapping into our network of amazingly skilled graphic designers, photographers and video directors.

And as for whether Spacecraft will have impact and memorability?  Well, as the new pilots, and when the time comes to expand our crew, hopefully time will tell.

This article first appeared in B4 Magazine issue 35.