Aligning Your Name To Your Product
While visiting a client yesterday, I saw a new restaurant open and the name just did not make sense. In fact, it sounded weird.
Manhattan Mediterranean Food. Manhattan is in New York. And New York is about 8,000 miles from the Mediterranean. But I’m sure you already know this.
Did I feel like going there? No. Because I know it will go out of business. Now I do like Mediterranean food, I think. I actually do not even have a clear idea what it is. It just sounds exotic and exciting. It lets my imagination run wild. Will I get Greek food (my first thought), or will it be something strange and spicy from Algeria?
What is sad is that the restaurant business is already tough enough and they seem to come and go faster than the seasons. This is why you need to really know how to position your product so that it does not create confusion. Good marketing creates the “I’ve really got to have that!” impulse that results in revenue.
Bad marketing is like halitosis. It drives people away, leaves a bad taste in their mouth (pun intended) and creates the idea to never do business there. Even before they did business there in the first place.
There are a number of ways to do this, but the most sound is market research and surveys. The simplest way to do that is to talk to your potential market and ask them questions. In the case of this misnamed restaurant, one could have asked:
When I say “Mediterranean Cuisine”, what comes to mind? What images do you get?
From that, one will see what types of names would be best and what images one would use as a logo. And do it before you spend a lot of money.
Best, Edwin Dearborn