Using science to rebrand | Hacker News Reader

Using science to rebrand

blog.pistollake.com

26 pointswsul19 comments

Good to hear you guys survived that challenge. The new name's nice, it should be popular with outdoorsmen, hunters, and gamesmen. I'm not sure how well it'll go over with backpackers, conservationists, and tree-huggers like myself.

Why don't you think it'll go over well? We're backpackers, conservationists, and tree-huggers ourselves. :)

There are some liberals who like guns. And lakes. And lakes named after guns.

Whats the deal with validate.io? I'd like to rebrand my website (flapcast.com -- sort of a silly, brash name decision :) and this looks like a great tool to use, but the website only has an email address on it.

Its an incredible service in alpha by the guys from SocialSci.com -- happy to make an intro if you'd like.

Sure, thanks, my email is in my profile.

That's how every rebranding has been done for the past 50 years, lots of field research. But usually more importance is given to qualitative research, not quantitative. Focusing on numbers gives too much leeway for interpreting data in the wrong way.

btw I'm right in the target demographic and I'm not very fond of the new name. Something with "pistol" in it evokes not-so-nice concepts, and teenage brands with words like army/fight/420/skulls/maryjane/etc.

Well then, hopefully we can win you over with quality products, a great value prop, and a nice design and brand aesthetic!

The name's good, but maybe it's not the best URL-wise... pistolake or pistollake?

Wish you the best anyway :)

Glad you like the name. We bought the variations we could think of and we'll redirect them soon!

Awesome!

Please include a link to your main site from your blog, for your readers' sake.

You mean a link on the blog.pistollake.com index page or within each blog post?

Just added to the index page.

Thanks for the heads up!

Like in the title would be ideal, I think.

Also, what you have right now is the URL but it's not linkified. You might want to do that.

Regardless of what the math said, I'm afraid it's a big notch down from Holden. Holden was cool, masculine and classy. This is just masculine, in a fishing trip kind of way.

More specifically, "pistol" = wild west, unkempt cowboys, sweaty mexicans, dusty towns, etc. Similarly, "lake" = tranquility, fishing, retirement, discomfort (to the urbanites). It's just a conflicting mess of associations. I think you are shooting yourselves in the leg with this rebrand, and I really wish that you weren't.

We loved From Holden as well; we grew up there and it meant a lot to us. We might have been able to contest the C&D but at the end of the day, those guys have done exactly what we are doing -- poured their blood, sweat, and tears into building a company from the ground up. If they felt we were going to do harm to their brand, we definitely weren't willing to move forward because we loved the name or felt attached to it.

So that leaves us with establishing a new brand, and while there were some good ideas, none of them really stuck. We're investing our lives into building a long-lasting company and I'd rather build a brand around something that is already really meaningful to me than a made up word or one that has less emotional connection.

I know the story behind your name change, and I can't complement you enough on the way you handled it. But the new name is not engaging, it's off. It doesn't even connect to the imagery you have on your Kickstarter's page, and it feels like a rushed decision.

Also, I think you might have your priorities wrong. There certainly should be an emptional connection, but it should be that of your customers rather than yourselves. In the end it's not you who's going to be buying your shirts.

Cool process.

I'd guess that for the desired characteristics -- masculine, trustworthy -- respondents wound up applying a sort of 'handicap theory' analysis to the names. That's the idea that in certain status/fitness competitions, sometimes strength is signaled by demonstrating the ability to take on otherwise costly/tangential burdens. (A peacock's feathers and other sexually-selected exaggerated characteristics are the classic examples.)

That is, certain flaws in the names actually indicated: this brand is strong enough not to pander. 'Rowe Brook' is a bit mysterious. Probably a name, but one that is uncommon, not definitively gendered, and perhaps prone to mishearing (that silent 'e') or teasing puns. A person with that name, and choosing to use that name for their business, has nothing to prove and isn't cloying for approval: hence the high 'trustworthy' rating. (Two of the lowest-trustworthy are pandering: 'rogue ethike' and 'unbeholden'. Real unbeholden rogues don't have to remind people they're that way!)

'Pistol Lake' is sure to turn off a few people due to its gun-association. But again, the subconscious reasoning among a wider audience may be: if a brand can shake that off... maybe it's strong in other dimensions? ...or they're so manly they don't care what some may think?

Very interesting concept -- handicap theory. At the end of the day, we're confident our craftsmanship will speak for itself and will be what matters most, and the data from the survey did a lot to calm our own doubts about a name that we were very personally attached to.

It has been fascinating though, and we definitely plan to do further research for other decisions in the future.

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