Saturday, February 24, 2007

Froogle v/s Frugal

When Craig Nevill-Manning was looking for a name for his 20% project at Google, he thought up Froogle. Great choice. For those who didn't know what Froogle is, what would they think of it as a name for? It sounds like Frugal. So it must be something connected with saving money? Question is, why didn't Manning go with Frugal? Because Frugal only rhymes with Google, but doesn't look like Google. And therein lies an important naming principle for brand extensions. If you want a brand extension to riff off the strengths of your existing brand, not only must the extension sound something like the established brand, it must also try and look like it.

And for those of you in the boondocks wondering what Froogle is, it's the name for shopping site run by the guys at Google. It's also proof that all it takes to come up with a good name is common sense and bit of simple thinking. It's not rocket science.

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