
Mint founder on branding: Keep it simple - ctingom
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10457870-36.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=Webware&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+webware+%28Webware.com%29&utm_content=Bloglines
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wmeredith
As an Online Marketing Account Manager for an agency, I'm constantly
explaining to clients why building the site for his new shiny widget at
shinywidgetworldonline.net instead of ponying up the cash for shinywidget.com
is a terrible idea.

We do a lot of branding and brand-shepherding and it always amazes me how
little people care about things like names and logos. They'll budget <$500 for
something that's going to be the first thing every single one of their
customers associates with their business.

Obviously, if a company has a monopoly (Craigslist) or some other _truly
unreproducible_ competitive advantage, than these sort of blunders can be
nullified. But I've never worked with one in the 5 years I've been doing this;
I've worked with plenty who thought they did.

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Retric
I think Craigslist and news.ycombinator.com both have a well executed strategy
targeting a specific market. It's not the generic "slick" approach, but most
users view it as "ugly enough to be useful" not just "ugly."

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mhartl
_"Choose something with meaning, even if it's expensive and difficult to
acquire, rather based on domain name availability, because otherwise, you're
going to kill word-of-mouth."_

Absent _any_ indication of how to acquire a domain like mint.com, this is
irritating advice. Moreover, there are tons of counterexamples. I'd guess that
most brand gurus would counsel against such nonsensical domain names as
weebly.com or wufoo.com, but both of those companies are kicking ass. I also
find it telling that 37signals has been able to build several highly
successful (and essentially non-viral) web apps with such unlikely domain
names as backpackit.com, basecamphq.com, and campfirenow.com. Come to think of
it, 37signals.com is also an unlikely domain name for a runaway success.

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vinhboy
So how much did the name "mint" really matter? Versus the fact that the CEO
seems like a very hard worker and created an awesome product.

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fjabre
Names do matter. You just have to weight its importance appropriately.

Put it this way: a name might not help your product but you definitely don't
want it to hurt your product/brand.

