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Mar 12
2010

Death by... NAME?

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Posted by: Tara Smiley on Mar 12, 2010 16:07

Tagged in: Untagged 

 What's in a name? According to Morris Mandel, " A name is the blueprint of the thing we call character.  You ask, What's in a name.  I answer, Just about everything you do."  Your name is your image, your definition, your link to the past or your fresh start, and the first point of public perception. If your name carries that much weight behind it, you can imagine the damage potential if your name sucks.

During the course of an initial conversation and property show, I asked a prospect if they had toured other properties and what they liked or disliked about them. I wanted to know the over/under on my competition. The FIRST comment out of this prospect's mouth was that they had really loved one of our comps but hated the name. They actually said that they would feel embarrassed telling friends that they lived there and using the name of the apartment community.That the name sounded "stupid" (Their word , not mine) and that by association, they feared people would make a judgement in connection.   It struck me as funny and a good conversation to be had, so we got to talking about what's in a name, and how that can influence apartment shoppers on the phone, on line and on property.

Which made me wonder what residents at my property thought of us. So I asked. Our property name is simple, to my mind a bit stately (in a good way), and has a dominant ring to it. My residents described it as "easy to remember", "adult, but not senior citizen", "solid", "established", and even "local-sounding". One resident went so far to tell me that the property name reminded them of baby trees, but that resident is only 6, so...

I started looking at competitor property names. Some sounded rich or "hoity - toitey". Some sounded like group homes. Some sounded specifically geared toward specific age ranges, and others toward demographic concentrations. Some were geared to have the local essence of their market and reflect historical pieces. Some were completely out of touch with their markets (FYI - Please do not reference a lake ANYWHERE in your name if there isn't one for 10 miles of your property),. It seemed seriously possible to me that a property's name could influence the traffic pull, age brackets, and much more... either to the good or the bad.

We talk a lot about image, reputation, and brand. But how many of your properties have a name that REALLY reflects the property? OR the company? Is anyone really working their name? Who is using the name and it's connections - either real or implied? Or the brand, mission or anything of relevance? I wanted to get some thoughts on "What's in a name" in our industry.


Comments (6)Add Comment
3407
written by Frederic Guitton, March 12, 2010
What an interesting point! I actually recall that when my wife an I rented our first apartment the name was a factor in which communities we went to visit (this was pre-internet).
A name is very important, my wife an I are expecting our third child and the name is a big part of expecting. Now I am NOT comparing an apartment community to a child in any way.
I do agree that the name of a community certainly impacts perception by prospective tenants. I do have one question about this. If one was to find that a name was detrimental to their marketing should that name be changed?
2272
written by Ellen Thompson, March 12, 2010
I was part of a property renaming exercise within the last year, and it came down to a multiple choice test i.e. we had to choose one from four names the director of PM came up with. I think the resulting name was OK, but they might have been better off emailing their current residents with a one question survey asking for their opinion. I gave the same advice in a another rebranding situation. A customer of ours is redoing their site. She showed me two website and asked me which was more of the direction they should go. I said why not poll your residents and ask them based on the graphic of the site, which community would they rather live in. A poor decision about a name or the color scheme of a website can set the wrong mood and turn away a prospect. I'm sure it happens all the time.
1013
written by Tara Smiley, March 13, 2010
Frederic - To answer your question about the negative impact of a property name on marketing... We see them change all the time. I have seen properties and companies change names to overcome poor reputations, become more "current" in their market, and to incorporate local opinion, political, or social concepts. I have also seen those efforts fail miserably.
Ellen - Thanks for the feedback! I think incorporating resident ideas is great! Gives much better ownership in the planning and outcome!
62
written by Brent Williams, March 15, 2010
Great topic, Tara, and one that definitely needs to be addressed! As a big joke, a while back I had thought to make a apartment community name generator tool, where we input several hundred nature words and have them match up together randomly. I assumed that there would be plenty of communities that used it as a real tool rather than see how ridiculous it was meant to be...

And Ellen - I think you are spot on with the idea of polling the residents. It amazes me how many decisions are made within the bubble of what we think our residents will like rather than simply asking them! And on top of that, that process will give emotional "ownership" to the resident, as if they have helped define and create the community around them, which will undoubtedly help retention down the road.
1013
written by Tara Smiley, March 15, 2010
Brent - I had to laugh when I read this because as I was writing the original post, I remembered the old HS / College game of creating your... (for lack of a better term) stripper name. The name generator tool reminded me of it. I am continuously amazed how many properies seem to have names with absolutely no relevance to their locale or company image. Thanks for the comments!
62
written by Brent Williams, March 15, 2010
I remember that! It had something to do with your street name and your pet name, which I found kind of disturbing...
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