Branding in the Irish web industry

My new brand

Branding a new company isn’t easy, but there are rules you can follow to simplify the task. The first of these is differentiation: your brand needs to stand out from the crowd. This is the crowd that Contrast wants to stand out from, categorised by their names.

Trendy / “cool”

  • Pro Studio,
  • eScape Webdesigns,
  • 2bscene,
  • Jenerate,
  • xcommunications,
  • nPresence,
  • JET,
  • equinox and
  • Artefact.

Silly

  • Guilty Fish,
  • Laughing Lion Design and
  • ILikeCake.

Made-up / non-English

  • Avanti Go,
  • Dolcev,
  • quomo,
  • Calyco,
  • Fusio,
  • eBow,
  • Denobi,
  • Continuum,
  • Clearscape,
  • KilDeal Creations,
  • Arekibo,
  • esus,
  • Martec,
  • grafica.ie,
  • Jaxz,
  • futura,
  • Magico,
  • Aarlo,
  • darklite-sce,
  • Ardent,
  • Arl Design,
  • Eridgena,
  • Avenir,
  • Zepher,
  • inca,
  • Ketec,
  • onemorego,
  • Altrick Designs,
  • Dotser,
  • Spiralli,
  • Deewhy and
  • Creo.

Vague

  • enhance,
  • Mercury Creations,
  • Artizan Creative,
  • Gravitate,
  • iQ Content,
  • Front,
  • Island.ie,
  • Waterfall Web Design,
  • Storm Web Developement,
  • Nice One,
  • Protocol,
  • Inspiration,
  • Fluent,
  • Nevada,
  • Ridge,
  • Try Switch,
  • Clear Chance,
  • 20:20 Vision,
  • OnTheFly.ie,
  • Ripe,
  • Fable Interactive,
  • BarrowVale Technology,
  • Media Host,
  • Flo Web Design,
  • Design Drago,
  • techstore,
  • Mediajunk,
  • Flow New Media and
  • The Design Suite.

Nouns

  • Bluecube,
  • Lightbox,
  • RedFly,
  • Spoiltchild,
  • Fuel,
  • red sky,
  • Blue Cherry,
  • Clearwater,
  • Red Moon Media,
  • Centre Stage Design,
  • DragonFly Web Media,
  • PixelApes and
  • RedLemonade.

“Web” / “digi” / cliched

  • Webtrade,
  • Websplash,
  • Webfactory,
  • CobWeb,
  • Webiwant,
  • go2web,
  • Clickstream,
  • Complete Web Solutions,
  • Digimute,
  • Webdistortion,
  • BeeWebed,
  • a2b web,
  • EdenWeb,
  • Websmiths,
  • Matrix Internet,
  • WebPusher,
  • Webworks Ireland,
  • worldsites,
  • Draiocht Web and
  • Active Online.

Irish / “Eire”

  • IrishCom,
  • aro,
  • AllIrelandWeb,
  • Draioct,
  • Eire Studios and
  • Eire Web Design.

Abbreviations

  • MGS Web Design,
  • PVD Web Design,
  • TMG Online Services and
  • OSD.

Updates

  1. Added clarification that I’m commenting on the brand names.

Posted by Eoghan McCabe at 7:11 am on 12 February, 2008.

24 Comments

Any chance you can link them? :)

Posted by Alan O'Rourke at 9:26 am on 12 February, 2008.

One of those is actually the password for my home wifi network :D

Posted by Damien at 10:37 am on 12 February, 2008.

What was the point of this post? I’d also disagree with your classifications. You classify a few names as “silly”. They’re at least a bit amusing

Posted by Michele at 10:40 am on 12 February, 2008.

i’ve decided to differentiate based on blogging for my customers rather than for my my peers…at least that’s the idea 8)

Kevin

Posted by Kevin Peyton at 10:42 am on 12 February, 2008.

Alan: Yeah right! :-)

Posted by Eoghan McCabe at 10:45 am on 12 February, 2008.

Nice to know I work somewhere cool - oh no wait - those are ironic quotes!

Posted by Stewart Curry at 10:55 am on 12 February, 2008.

Surely ‘Contrast’ would be a candidate for the Vague category by your own definitions?

Posted by Derek Lawless at 11:17 am on 12 February, 2008.

@Derek - ROFL. So true

Posted by Michele at 11:25 am on 12 February, 2008.

Just followed your twitter link…

I don’t understand this post either. Are you talking about brand or company names?

Without links, talking about brand is meaningless for those of us who aren’t going to research each company named here. If you’re talking about names, well name does not equal brand and therefore perhaps you should amend the opening of the post.

I’m guessing you’re talking about names, due to the categories you have listed the companies under. If you are indeed just talking about names, perhaps you could expand on how you feel Contrast is differentiated from the lists above…?

Also, is it just the tone of some of the previous posts that makes me feel like you’re looking down your nose at this list? I’m assuming it must be because I’m sure there are people you respect on or associated with names in that list.

Otherwise, eventually it might become rather isolated up there in that ivory tower… :D

There’s some great material here already in a short period of time, and perhaps you have designed the attitude for maximum traction, but I feel like if I’m going to post I have to say some of it grates…

Anyway, catch you later.

Posted by frankp at 11:45 am on 12 February, 2008.

Just teasing.

I’m sure a reasonable argument can be made for the rationale behind all the names listed by Eoin. The point being that ultimately the brand is not equivalent to the name.

A successful brand will be built on a compelling offering (it may be compelling in terms of cost, uniqueness, or any number of factors), customer satisfaction, quality, agility, etc.

You can’t claim to be different or better to company XYZ just because you think you have a better name than them. Many of the companies listed have been in business for over a decade in a comparatively young industry - that’s not by accident (in most cases!).

Posted by Derek Lawless at 12:05 pm on 12 February, 2008.

I agree with both Derek and Michele. Don’t really see the point of this post other than a list of Irish companies. I believe that these days, the company name is less important than ever. Contrast has a nice brand but it comes from the presence that you have built for it, combined with a good visual identity. Would make no difference to me if you were calling yourself “Eggplant Inc.”

Posted by James at 1:24 pm on 12 February, 2008.

That may be the most transparent piece of Google whoring I have ever seen in my life.

Alan’s right though: it’ll work better if you link them.

Posted by John Handelaar at 1:38 pm on 12 February, 2008.

I think what defines your brand is usually what you pitch as your competitive advantage.

Some of the companies listed above are excellent at producing electric vibrant sites most suitable for bands, some are excellent value for money, some are known by their dedication to keeping clients happy, some over-deliver on all their projects, some deal exclusively with small brochure sites but do them superbly.

I think you need to decide what sort of company Contrast will be, as that will define the brand far more than a name, logo, or tone of voice.

Posted by Des Traynor at 3:09 pm on 12 February, 2008.

Hi everyone. Thanks for all the comments; I’ll reply to each shortly. Just to clarify, I am talking about the brand names and I’ve added this clarification to the post.

Posted by Eoghan McCabe at 6:02 pm on 12 February, 2008.

Michele, James; re “point of post”: The point of any blog post is to be what it’s author made it! But you’ve been good enough to comment, so I’ll explain. :-)

When working on the Contrast brand and choosing a name for it, I did a lot of market research. This list is a product of that research and I wanted to share it with anyone else that might find it useful. This is the market that Contrast must compete in and these are the companies—with light commentary from me about their names—in said market. That’s it! No more, no less. :-)

James: I understand where you’re coming from, but I completely disagree with you about the importance of a name. While a good name can do little to help a bad company, a bad name can do a lot to hinder a good company.

Posted by Eoghan McCabe at 6:22 pm on 12 February, 2008.

Stewart: It got very cool—not “cool”, but genuinely cool—in October 2006. You remember what happened then? ;-)

Posted by Eoghan McCabe at 6:24 pm on 12 February, 2008.

Hi Frank. Thanks for dropping by. I really appreciate you being honest and I’ll take your feedback on-board. I won’t deny I’ve decided to cut to the chase with my commentary on the industry—like I promised I would—but I’m not trying to be a complete prick! You’re right, there are plenty of folk on that list I respect and I’m just passing some mild commentary on their names. I hope they’ll return the favour! :-)

Posted by Eoghan McCabe at 6:51 pm on 12 February, 2008.

John, I don’t quite understand how this post constitutes “Google whoring”. But maybe I just don’t understand the term. Perhaps you can enlighten me?

Posted by Eoghan McCabe at 6:56 pm on 12 February, 2008.

Derek, Des: I agree with you completely and the problem here was my poor opening paragraph. I’m talking solely about the brand names.

Posted by Eoghan McCabe at 7:00 pm on 12 February, 2008.

To be honest Eoghan, that doesn’t really clear it up. I could understand if you’re commenting on the other names, but there is no real commentary there - just stuff like “Fuel is a noun”.

I now know that you are just publishing the results of your market research for the hell of it, you made the list so might as well post it for the benefit of other Irish companies that are looking for a name. But I would forgive people for thinking that this is Google whoring - promoting your own company so that you come up whenever someone searches for your competitor (even though I know that this is not what you’re doing).

And regards a bad name, of course that could damage your company if you named it Snozcumber Squadron or something, but I’m not talking about bad names… I’m talking about acceptable names. Most of the domains on the list are good enough in my opinion, as is Eggplant Inc., it’s what’s behind the name that counts. Some of the most successful web companies have distinctly average names.

Posted by James at 7:16 pm on 12 February, 2008.

Waterfall Web Design… sounds like they like long release cycles and BDUF

Posted by Ciaran Lee at 1:40 am on 13 February, 2008.

Silly, SILLY??
(Dramatic flick of hair)
I spent WEEKS working on my company name with a team of twenty from Ogilvy.

Posted by Jennifer Farley at 5:59 pm on 13 February, 2008.

ah bugger … I feel all left out now :D

Posted by James at 9:03 pm on 13 February, 2008.

Hey Eoghan,

Nice list. I think I made some brain connections I didn’t have before.

Did you create this as a part of trying to come up with Contrast?

Posted by James at 1:19 pm on 20 February, 2008.

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