Micaela: Our second point of discussion was existing brands. Through research into existing brands and their presence within their particular markets we are grasping an idea of what it takes for a brand to make it successfully in the business world and applying elements of why we think they have been so successful to the production of our own media brand.
So, we looked at various brands that we interact with on a day to day basis and which have also been around for many years while we have been growing up. We looked at elements such as; whether their brand names are easy to pronounce, easy to remember and even whether or not they have meaning to us?
TOPSHOP:
Topshop was the first brand name to spring into our minds, as a brand that all of us use regularly and are loyal too. At name value, this brand is hardly one that will be mistaken for anything other than it's purpose: a clothes store.
As a group we discussed that this brand name is a perfect example of one that will stick around for many years to come and will continue to be a popular and easily remembered high street brand across the world. At it's literal meaning 'topshop' means 'clothes store' and that in itself is effective marketing.
Costa Coffee:
We also looked into brands such as Costa Coffee more commonly known as just 'Costa' as a great example of how alliteration is used by brands to create a more easily remembered brand name that will roll off of their customers tongues and allow them to be identified as a coffee shop easily through rhyme. 'Costa' is short and snappy and has since been used as a term used to describe the actual products themselves. Fancy 'a' costa; this effective use of a brand name has meant over the years that even the name itself has become a tangible thing.
The right brand name is something that through our market research we have found is increasingly important. The brand name is the face of the brand, it is the first part of the brand that the customer comes into contact with and makes a connection with. This connection is usually the customers ability to remember the name of the brand. Brands such as McDonald's and Nike are easily remembered by their customers and are coincidently brands that are popular world wide with loyal customers across the globe, regardless of cultural differences.
Carrying on from this, we began to think about what sort of things we ideally wanted to present to our target audience through our brand name. (See thought processes and ideas under 'Company Names')
Mollie: Our brand name and brief thoughts on Trendwatching
Continuing from the task sheet for this week, we have considered further brand names of existing successful brands alongside ideas for our media company. We have discussed the importance of brand names listing what makes a strong brand name. We concluded ideas of positive connotations, easy to pronounce and easy to remember, short and snappy with a link to the concept of he company itself. We drafted key words for out company considering the aims and ethics such as-
-youth -diversity -progression -media -students -strength -power -technology -enterprise -global
We focused on a few final ideas such as "STUDIA" meaning student media. This concept came from the target market of our app being predominantly students, although after deliberation we decided to not focus out media company excusably to one target market therefor decided to have a brand name that widened the companies target market. We considered the ethics of the company and what we waned our company to stand for, we came up with "Elevate" as our official media company name, with connotation of strength and progression.
Another focus on the task sheet for this week was the focus on 'tends' for influence and inspiration towards our brand that we aim to be current. Trendwatching 16 is a site that studies up and coming trends, we studied the site and up coming trends for inspiration.
http://trendwatching.com/trends/5-trends-for-2016/
One concept that inspired us on trend watching was the introduction of gift cards to buy stocks and shares mainly in America, considering the way our app could engage with people and the concept of incentives of usage, this gave us an initial idea of creating gift cards for out travel app that can be bought in local supermarkets. This is something that isn't available for any travel sites currently therefor embracing a new trend and creating something unique for our travel app.
