Love is a feeling that cannot be explained. Everyone has his or her understanding of love and finds difficulty in persuading others in love affairs. Two people may share some traits, become known to each other because of their looks, go for a date because of money, and stay together because of their children. 

In the case of branding, branding evolves because of their image, pricing and experience. Love begins with an encounter, develops after each date, becomes established upon a confession, and is lifted by each touch. Branding starts with a show, develops through marketing, become established with experience, and is lifted by each transaction.

Love is evidenced by marriage, while branding is represented by trade marks. Love finally goes to bed, while branding leads to deals. 

Love without marriage and branding without trade mark cannot be protected by the law, and love without intercourse and branding without deals are flowers without fruits. 

Love with marriage is not guaranteed to be lasting, while branding with trade marks and deals are not meant to exist permanently. 

Both brands and love are the result of hard working rather than simple positioning.

What is the most important thing after you encounter your dream-lover? Leave your name and phone number.

This is the same case with branding. You cannot refuse to be popular, when all the man kind knows your name. As for branding, the difference is that you don't even have to leave the phone number, because your name can be found on the Internet. A catchy name is a 50% off discount coupon, saving a half of advertising costs.

The brand name is the top keyword

To make the point, what is the most important asset other than brands and trademarks in the strong Internet era? GM believes it should be keywords. Names, categories, functions, specifications, positioning, styles, differences, etc. are keywords. Some keywords are specific to you, such as your brand name, which remain unknown without promotion. The majority of keywords are shared, such as product category names, for which you have to pay for lifting your ranking in search results.

One who wants to make a keyword with high search volume private is fighting against the whole industry; one who makes his or her own keyword to be frequently searched is to let the whole industry to be his or her rival. Fighting against the whole industry indicates that you are an entrant, and the whole industry taking you as a rival indicates that you are an industry leader. Therefore, let's place our brand names high in search results, and let people remember them.

Familiar keywords in privatization

I do not like reading foreign novels. The reason is very simple: I cannot remember the names in novels. It is difficult to understand a novel without remembering its names. Recently, a Boeing 777 of Malaysia Airlines disappeared in the air. The British supplier of the airplane’s engines, Rolls-Royce, made comments about the accident.

Some people know Rolls-Royce is also a maker of upscale automobiles, while many people think it is just an unknown company. Rolls-Royce, Laosilaisi (Chinese), Luoluo (Chinese), and RR all refer to the same company, but give different impressions in our mind. 

Alas, many local brands act like copycats by coining names with similar pronunciation but cannot be remembered by themselves to confuse the public with real foreign brands. Rolls-Royce was named after the two founders like many other international upscale brands. Similarly, many Chinese brands are also named after their founders, such as Benshan Media.

Today, it is unnecessary for Chinese brands to be disguised as foreign brands. Rolls-Royce is not a good example of naming. If Rolls-Royce were engaged in e-commerce, its English name plus three Chinese translations would leave no space for other information in its title of pages. Reducing the characters is equivalent to saving money. Fortunately, Laosilaisi is the most popular Chinese translation for Rolls-Royce. Those companies with English names will find difficulty in making people find their information with keywords. People have to check whether results are official or not. The North Face is clever in choosing its Chinese name “Beimian”.

Before that, people use Beilian, Lesifeisi and other weird words for The North Face. These names are useless except for being confusing.

The North Face did not choose other options, because Beimian is memorable as it is an existing Chinese expression. Being memorable is the first rule of naming:

When choosing between sounding upscale and being memorable, choose being memorable;

When choosing between resembling product features and being memorable, choose being memorable;

When choosing between being distinct and being memorable, choose being memorable.

When choosing between a memorable homonym and the original expression, choose the original expression;

When choosing between rare expressions and familiar expressions, choose familiar expressions.

Memorable “existing expressions” are the best names. The first rule of Daoruoji Rules of Branding is being understandable, and the second rule is being memorable. Other Daoruoji rules are related to the temperament, style and tone of brands. If a brand has no connection with its brands, it is easy to combine them together in slogans or by other means. (For example, Apple is name having no relevance with its brands). If a brand cannot be easily remember, huge money has to be burnt for communicating it to the audience. (For example, the upscale brand “Acura” of Honda was once called “Akula” in Chinese and was later renamed “Ouge”, an existing expression. Unless a brand is targeted at a niche market, being memorable shall be considered first. A brand cannot be communicated before it is memorized. For example, many people do not know Mercedes though they know Benz. Please see the Nine Practices of Brand Naming for details.

In the era of single products, products become the primary entrance, and product categories are the second step of name.

In addition to the specific name, a product is associated with a shared name of its category. Being memorable is still the first rule here. SK-II Shenxianshui (Facial Treatment Essence) is a classic example. SK-II is the weirdest name among cosmetic brands. (Many people do not know how to pronounce II or input it with keyboard). However, Shenxianshui is a good name, as it is a memorable existing expression and matches the product’s functionality. Give a nickname to the primary product is a quick strategy. Another example is Estee Lauder “small brown bottles”. Addition of an affix and/or suffix to a category name of products is a trick essence for differentiation from similar products and making the keyword private. Similarly, addition of an affix and/or suffix to a function or other generalized name is another trick.

How to imply the taste of a brand as names should be close to life? The taste of a brand is established by pricing and products, and has nothing to do with the taste of the brand name. Baoma (BMW) is a luxury brand, but Qianlima is normal brand. Phantom of Rolls-Royce is a good example, as it is memorable and implies a strong sense of speed.

Ultimate privatization is the standard

A brand implies a sense, which is a standard of branding.

For example, 7-11 makes “7” private by incorporating it in the trade mark. We tell whether a commercial center is established by looking for a 7-11 store. This sense is the result of branding, coming from strict selection and execution. If 7-11 stores were seen everywhere, their existence no longer gives the same feeling. Another example is Burberry which makes the check pattern a private character, so now 3+1 check patterns represent a sense of British gentlemen. This is the result of branding design with consistent focus on the same geometric pattern. If it changes patterns from circles to triangles and squares, this feeling would disappear.

A sentence said by Confucius in Yi – Shuogua: “explore through truth and human nature and even life to the end”. The sentence means that we should understand the truth and human nature, grasp the law, and use it in our life. We can go further by making the law part of our character and behavior. For example: printed white T-shirts are sold well, because 90% people want to be same with others, while 10% tend to keep being differentiated from others. This is a part of human nature, and it is a taste when talking about products.