In my humble opinion, the most powerful brands always mean nothing—and I mean absolutely nothing—until they do mean something. Take Nike for example. If you didn’t already know it, would you ever in your wildest imagination think that a company named “Nike�? manufactured running shoes and athletic gear? Would you know that Apple ignited the personal computer revolution / reinvented the personal computer with the Macintosh? What about Google, Yahoo, or eBay. How about Citigroup, Fidelity, Wells Fargo?

Nike could have just as easily called itself Sneakers, Inc., while Apple could have been named Great Computers, LLC, and Google could have been Search.com (and I‘d bet you dollars to donuts that you’ve never even been to that site). eBay could have been Auction.com, and so forth and so on (heck, Exxon could have been called Diversified Multi-national Profiteering Corporation, but we won’t go there in today’s post ).

As I mentioned in a recent post, my own company, Doba, just wrapped up a major brand migration of its own. For the first three years in the life of the company, we called ourselves Wholesale Marketer. Then, late last year, because we wanted to be able to define for ourselves and on our own terms what our company did and what we stood for, we decided to create a unique brand. To us and almost everyone else, “Wholesale Marketer�? meant something. The word “wholesale�? means “the sale of goods in large quantities, as for resale by a retailer.�? The word “marketer�? means something too: “someone who promotes or exchanges goods or services for money.�? Together, they mean the sale of goods in large quantities by someone who exchanges goods for money! Or, do they mean something else entirely? Costco uses the word ‘wholesale’ pretty loosely, and “marketer�? is used in the term “telemarketer,�? so is that a negative thing?

After a lot of thought, internal team discussions and more than a few disagreements, I pushed for a brand that could be defined on our own terms, without any preconceived notions or ideas as to what it meant or stood for.

So what does Doba mean? It’s not an acronym, so it doesn’t stand for a group of other words, and it’s not some secret code used by childhood friends either. To us, the owners of the word, it means Product Sourcing. Simplified.. As owners of the brand, it’s now incumbent upon our senior management to plant that meaning into the hearts and minds of our employees, customers, partners, and to the whole wide world.

The bottom line is this… the most powerful brands and companies set out to do their own thing. That’s the core of what was behind the brand migration to “Doba.�? If you’re just starting out in business yourself, don’t do what we did… don’t call yourself “Wholesale Marketer,�? “Shirt Maker,�? or “Sticker Manufacturer.�? Don’t allow others to define or pigeon hole you. If you do, you’ll likely end up going through a costly brand migration project like the one we just completed (more on that bundle of joy in the next couple of weeks when I outline my recommendations for tackling such a large undertaking).