PLAYING THE ‘NAME GAME’
A sneak peek behind the scenes at how we came up with the name Protocol Red
There is one question that almost every client inevitably asks us:
“What does your name Protocol Red mean?”
Most people agree the name sounds cool and edgy. And it’s not like we’re the first marketing company to have an abstract name. But it is interesting how many people are interested enough to ask for the meaning of our agency name.
As a group, we have handled half a dozen corporate branding and rebranding projects in our career. The entire process is both exciting and exhausting (both mentally and even physically). Whether you are a brand new company with a blank canvas, or an established company that is changing its name (usually due to trademark issues that force this upon the company), there are some parts of the process that remain consistent.
For us, we felt a lot of pressure to come up with the name of all names. It wasn’t an easy process, but we knew enough by now to enjoy the journey and just see where we would end up.
SETTING PARAMETERS
We started out by establishing the expectations and parameters we wanted our new name to abide by. There are many types of categories you can pursue for a company name:
– Descriptive (digital & strategic marketing group, LLC)
– Combining two words (digimark LLC)
– Personal (RAK digital marketing, LLC)
– Abstract
We knew from the beginning that we wanted a name from the final category: abstract. We wanted a modern name that was full of intrigue and had an edge to it. So we went to our trusty friend www.thesaurus.com and began compiling and combining lists of adjectives and words we liked. We narrowed our list down to 12 words that conveyed an appropriate amount of mystery, attitude and relevance.
At this point, we were fairly certain that our agency name would be more than one word. However, we were also aware of the need to keep the name as short as possible. It can’t be something too hard to pronounce or spell; it can’t be a tongue twister; and it can’t be 20 syllables long. So we stayed cognizant of that as we got further along into the process.
The word “protocol” was one of the more popular choices on this short list, and for good reason. We knew that one of the most common pain points that businesses expressed with their marketing agencies was that they could never really tell if they were getting their money’s worth. Agencies would come in and make grand promises, but very often were unwilling or unable to share data and analytics that would illustrate how effective their efforts were.
The word “protocol” was great because it conjured up a feeling of order…strategy…accountability.
FINDING THE PERFECT COMPLIMENT
Including the word “red” was something I personally pushed for from the very beginning. There were a number of reasons, professional and personal. Red has always been my favorite color (and as anyone who knows me is aware, it is by far the greatest flavor of candy ever invented). From a business standpoint, I really liked the idea of selecting a color that isn’t the obvious choice. When you study color theory, you learn some basic truths about certain colors, and how consumers perceive them. For example, yellow elicits a feeling of caution from consumers. Green can symbolize money or the earth. Blue is a popular color among both males and females, and it elicits a feeling of trust. That’s why a lot of banks use blue colors in their branding.
So the obvious choice would have been to incorporate the word “blue” into our name. But this is where instinct and vision come into play in marketing. As Mark Cuban always says, when everyone else zigs, you need to zag. So I convinced the group to go with the color red in our name as a way to be unique and almost counter-intuitive.
Another reason I loved combining “protocol” and “red” was that it was symbolic of our agency’s pursuit of Inbound Marketing as BOTH an art AND a science. The word “protocol” represented the Left Brain aspect: data, analytics, KPI-based goals, strategy, structured processes and methodologies. The complimentary word “red” was representative of the Right Brain aspect of marketing: creativity, design, passion, vision. The team agreed that we could not ask for a better combination of terms to represent who we are as an agency.
THE URL DILEMMA
In this day and age, anytime you are choosing a name, URL availability is by far the driving force. Although Google search is an option, the ideal scenario for any company is to secure a website URL that is the exact same spelling as their company name. Web domain availability is the automatic filter for any list of names you come up with. It forces you to adjust and play around with what you have.
It’s not like we came up with “Protocol Red” at the very beginning. It was an organic process that involved a lot of trial and error. And domain availability is always by far the most frustrating aspect of the branding process.
After many group brainstorm sessions that even involved friends and family members, we came up with the combination “protocol” and “red”. At first we were using it as “Red Protocol”, but that quickly changed to “Protocol Red”. The group liked the name a lot. The word “protocol” was great because it had that abstract intrigue we were looking for. And it was relevant to our company and to the internal process and formula that really set us apart from other marketing agencies. This methodology that we espouse is the reason Inbound Marketing is the niche that we wanted to focus on.
When you combine the two words, our name “Protocol Red” defined who we were and how we wanted to help our clients: we are true outside-the-box game changers who want to find success by zigging when everyone else is zagging (thus, why we have our logo favicon design of a box with a vertical line that goes outside of the box). After confirming that the name was available legally, we knew we had our winner.
LOOKING BACK
The name of a company is critical. It conveys who you are, what you are about, and what you stand for. It is the starting point for your brand. While I didn’t go into all the detail about our branding process in this blog post, I did give you enough of an overview to better understand how much thought should be put into this type of decision.
I hope you enjoyed this look at the process. Drop us a note at hello@protocolred.com and give us your feedback. Thanks for reading!
Ronnie Khadaran
Founder, Protocol Red
You’ve got nothing to lose.
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