Product Name Vs. Company Name, Which is More Important?

An interesting discussion is summarized in Twitter yesterday between me, Abangkis Pribadi (MReunion Labs, developers of Android applications), Titi Rusdi (7Langit) and Abul A’la Almaujudy (Better-B). Initially when I saw the talk show ads about “success” developers which will be held by detikInet that will invite 7Langit, Better-B and Komutta. Ok, Komutta. What I know so far Komutta is a product name, an application for the Android platform on Jakarta transportation information. The author is MReunion Labs.

It seems there’s already a “competition” between the product name vs company name here. Komutta is better known than MReunion Labs as its maker. Apparently the confirmation from 7Langit and Better-B itself was surprisingly mentioned that the fact is that not much different. They realized that a number of products are better known than their own company.

Although there are also products that have the same name with the company, such as Facebook and Twitter – the latter was initially using Odeo corporate entity, most developers have a variety of products that could be one or two of them is even more popular.

Ever heard of a BlackBerry application called Gempaloka or the Quran? Are you sure you know the author? It might be that most people would notice more when we mentioned the name of the product rather than the name of the company who built the product, although from the beginning it has been mentioned about the developers of these products. This may be a “problem” for all, but is this really a “problem”?

By the principles of marketing, this sort of thing is not weird. In the realm of FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) in which the brand plays an important role, it could be sometimes brand is even more important than the company itself. There is a term “one billion dollar brand”, in which a single product brand produce sales more than one billion dollars in one year. Many acquisitions that involve only the brand, not the company. Perhaps only Unilever, P&G, Danone and Nestle which have many popular products globally but still has a great image as a credible multinational company.

Discussing about the brand would be endless. Some literatures I read recommended the book “Brand Portfolio Strategy” by David A. Aaker as a guiding principle. You can read some contents via Google Books. I do not want to talk much about this because I’m not a marketing expert. Welcome to people who are more competent to brainstorm about this. One thing for sure this remains a concern for any company, including tech startups.

Talking again about the realm of startups, let us explore again, how many of you are more familiar to Rovio Mobile as a developer rather than Angry Birds, the phenomenal product which recently became a required game accessories for each application stores? On the positive side, when the name Angry Birds were raised, people would be more familiar with Rovio Mobile as the developer. So back to our case, although people would mention the name of one product which represent the developer’s entity, I think developers need not to worry about it. Just how the developer’s own marketing methods to exploit the success of one or two products to get credit or acknowledgment.

The conclusion that I take, no matter if the product was more famous than the company itself. Indirectly this means that the marketing strategy for superior products has been successful or very successful. As a developer, maybe even better yet raised the company’s name by associating themselves with a successful product name, eg call “Rovio Mobile, developer of the popular game Angry Birds’. What about your company, is it ready to hitch the success of the product name?

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Translated by Nita Sellya.