Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple's Success by Segall Ken

Author:Segall, Ken [Segall, Ken]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group
Published: 2012-04-25T16:00:00+00:00

Simplicity can make itself known in many forms: products, strategies, corporate hierarchies, processes, ads, speeches, and a hundred other places. But nowhere is Simplicity found in such a concentrated form as the name of a new product.

You have just a few alphanumeric characters to work with, yet you’d like to communicate something that you could write an essay about. The name will create a unique identity for the product, inject it with a personality, and hopefully contribute to building the company brand.

There are two methods by which a company can create a product name. It can bring in an agency that specializes in such things, which can cost a small fortune, or it can take a whack at it itself.

I’m sure the professionals in the naming field have a thousand reasons why matters of this sort should be “left to the experts.” I’m also sure that many big companies simply feel more comfortable trusting outside naming experts to handle the job. This is serious business, and there’s way too much riding on it.

If you’re a company that specializes in naming products, though, I wouldn’t sit by your phone waiting for Apple to call.

Apple doesn’t work that way. The names of its revolutionary products were all generated by either Chiat or Apple’s product and marketing teams. Given that iMac quickly became the biggest-selling single model in computer history and that iPhone and iPad rocked the world as they did, it’s hard to argue with Apple’s naming process.

Steve’s feeling was that nobody knew Apple’s products and plans, or understood the company’s culture better, than those inside Apple and Chiat. He wasn’t about to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to an outside expert, probably out of fear that he’d get product names like “Quadra” and “Performa”—computers that were shipped by Apple during his years of exile. Names like those might feel at home on the trunk of a Honda, but they never fit in Steve’s world. They reek of traditional corporate values, trying to be simultaneously cool and legally safe.

Because Steve put such a high value on Simplicity in naming, he normally went through many alternatives before making a final choice. You’d think that the name “iPhone” would have been a quick decision due to its obviousness. But many alternate names were developed, partly for the sake of due diligence and partly because there were some legal questions surrounding the name.

Of course, a great name doesn’t guarantee a hit product any more than a great education guarantees a perfect life. It simply increases the chances of success. A bad name, however, can indeed become a liability in a product launch. Like everything else in marketing (and life), the goal is to do everything in your power to tilt the odds in your favor. Burdening yourself with a bad product name is one way to hobble a product before it even reaches the shelves.

Having been through the process myself, I can attest to the fact that at some point, after you’ve filled walls

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