Studies of the characteristics of brand names used in the marketing of information products and services. II: Internet related services

More than 600 brand names across three different categories of online information services were analysed. The analysis took the form of both an objective individual analysis and a questionnaire analysis of brand names. For the individual analysis, a list of 100-300 brand names for each of the three categories of information services was obtained. Names were picked at random from standard reference sources and brand names were then analysed in terms of their linguistic characteristics. To test whether or not the most frequently occurring characteristics employed by the list of brand names were indeed the ones which would allow users to distinguish, with a minimum of effort, the information services which would be of most value to them, three questionnaires were designed. These were distributed to 530 staff and students at the University of Loughborough, Results suggest that the most frequently occurring brand name characteristics of online information services are not necessarily the most effective in allowing users to distinguish the services that would be of most value to them. Three frameworks are suggested for the future branding of online information services.