Mountain Valley vs. Liquid Death. They both sell water. One sounds refreshing. The other sounds like a rock band or a media company. One tells you where it’s from. The other makes you double-take.
Same product, wildly different runways.
A brand’s name isn’t just its first impression; it’s often its longest-lasting asset.
Positioning may shift. Even the best logos and visuals may evolve. Packaging gets refreshed. Product mixes expand and contract. But a name often outlasts these, meaning a decision made at a company’s inception must survive a future the business can’t fully see yet.
And to make matters more consequential, the rules of that future are being rewritten in real time.
As categories blur and technology helps them move at warp speed, brands that stay relevant can’t afford to stay singular, static, or in their respective lanes. The ones that win are built to move and adapt. They’re building responsive businesses and offerings and becoming cultural lightning rods that cut across generations, moments, and need states.
It’s why an online bookstore is now the infrastructure of modern commerce. Fitness brands are opening hotels. Beauty brands are becoming merch machines. And as it turns out, media companies like Unwell are launching water brands.
These days, the category a brand starts in is rarely the one it stays in.
Which means we’re selecting our most permanent asset in a market defined by constant reinvention. And some brands are naming themselves into corners without realising it.
The great naming trap
Brand names tend to exist on a spectrum from how clearly you describe what you offer (think: Whole Foods) to names with no literal connection to the offering (think: Erewhon).
Beyond clarity and convention, there’s another question that doesn’t get asked enough: how narrow or broad should the name be? It’s a deliberate balance: clarity drives early adoption, but breadth leaves room for growth. This needs to be an intentional, thoughtful step. But when brands skip it, they often pay for it later.
Clear, descriptive names work hard. Dave's Killer Bread tells you exactly what world it lives in. Oatly leaves little ambiguity about what's inside the carton. But they're also making a bet. The more specific the name, the more specific the future you may be locking yourself into.
What if Oatly wants to move into other alt-milks and compete with the likes of Califia Farms and Malk? Or consumers suddenly decide oats are canceled?
And there’s the trap. The same name that once clearly defined the business is now confining it.
We’re seeing this play out with ClassPass. For years, the name worked beautifully – until the business evolved beyond it. Recently, it expanded into food and beverage, reframing themselves around broader wellness access versus just fitness class access. Strategically, it makes sense. Nominally, they’re stuck.
The issue of whether the expansion is credible aside. Will people think to use the ClassPass app to order a smoothie? The name frames behaviour, and in this case, it’s framing the wrong one.
SoulCycle is a different version of the same trap – except they’re not trying to expand, they’re trying to survive. When boutique spin was hot, the name was an asset. But the category’s been cooling for years, and there’s very narrow territory they can slip into without fighting assumptions baked into their name.
To be clear, a name can’t save a broken business model. But a limiting one can make it harder to grow, evolve and pivot. And in a world where categories and markets shapeshift overnight, flexibility is everything.
For both, the choice is the same: change the name or change perception. Neither is free. Neither is easy. And neither is guaranteed.
Some of the world’s biggest brands have faced this tension:
Dunkin’ dropped the Donuts to signify breadth and modernity.
Weight Watchers became WW amid diet-culture baggage, then moved back to Weight Watchers amid the GLP-1 craze.
Athletic Greens became AG1 to expand their audience and usage occasions.
Facebook became Meta to untether themselves from social media.
These weren’t cosmetic updates. They were attempts to manufacture flexibility after the fact. And they cost time, money, and in some cases, enterprise value.
Which brings us to HBO. Remember when I said "longest-lasting asset?" HBO spent years trying to shed theirs. It rebranded to Max, only to quietly add HBO back when audiences refused to follow. Unfortunately, a name change isn't always a simple escape hatch.
Name of the long game
So, what if we built that flexibility in from the start? Where businesses ask themselves how far the brand name could take them, not just how well it tells the story of who they are today? It’s the difference between naming the thing you sell and the world you envision.
A brand can start narrow – it’s often the right strategic move. But the name doesn’t have to cement that bet.
That’s not an argument for vagueness or abstraction. It’s an argument for a more durable anchor.
Consider Uber. The name means above, beyond, superior. It’s anchored in a sense of service, not a mode of transport. Which is exactly why it could proliferate into Uber Eats, Uber Freight, and Uber Direct. Their name was never the ceiling; it was the foundation.
In a world where brands become platforms, names need legs. Impossible Foods is named after a mission with no limit – impossibly delicious, impossibly sustainable, impossibly whatever comes next. Vacation sells sunscreen. The name doesn’t, which means a hotel, a clothing line, a podcast – it all fits. And then there's the goddess of victory. An anchor so durable, Nike could own basketball, skateboarding, golf, and a multi-billion-dollar DTC business naturally.
As categories continue blurring and markets reinvent themselves, one of the riskiest things a brand can do is define itself too narrowly, too early.
That’s why the smartest names aren't just telling a story about the business, product, or service – they're making room for the one that doesn't exist yet.
The Brand Impact Awards 2026 are now open for entries! If you have a standout branding project from the last year that you think deserves recognition, you need to enter the BIAs. You have until July 9 to enter and you can do so on the Brand Impact Awards website.
