If a brand name has a cool meaning and no one knows it, does it still make a branding sound?Our friend Dave, who recently took a job at this online real estate company, pointed us to the story behind the Zillow name. It’s a sincere effort. Zillions of points of data are combined with something that feels like home, a pillow.
Does This Name Suck? ZILLOW
We just don’t think it’s good enough because people can never get there on their own, so it’s not transparently communicating anything. The name does have some strong points, though. Check out this #tellthetruths video to hear our full take on Zillow
This video originally appeared in LinkedIn
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Transcript:
– Hey guys, it’s Rebeca, and it’s time for another installment of “Does This Name Suck?” Today we’re going to do Zillow, and sadly the name Zillow, I think it does suck. And I really am sad to say that, because a friend of mine just went to work there. Hi, Dave! But the reason it zucks, sucks. Zucks . Z is stuck in my brain now.
All right, so maybe the fact that names that begin with the letters at the far end of the alphabet, X, Y, Z, they are a little bit more memorable. I’ll give them that. I’ll also give them it’s a little bit fun to say, right? Because names are never cut and dried. It has some things in its favor. Maybe also in its favor that it creates a little bit of an intrigue, like, what is that? But I don’t think it’s enough. I think that it sucks, ultimately, because it’s not a transparent communication that it’s a real estate, an online way of selling real estate that was really pretty revolutionary when they started. And they started in 2006.
I don’t think they had a lot of competition. So words around home and what they do for a living were probably available in the name. I think it works harder to be transparent that way to set yourself up for the storytelling to use the name as one of your communication pieces. When it’s a name like this that’s an empty vessel, doesn’t have a whole lot of metaphorical meanings or literal meanings that can help you, then you’re just throwing away an asset that could have been in your favor. They’ve done okay, but as a name, sorry, Dave, it kind of sucks. Let me know what you think. Bye.
