Be careful about introducing too many brands into your business.

There's a real art to determining what a new product, initiative, or technology deserves a new brand and exactly what kind of brand to use.

Too few, and things can be conflated together and hard to reference quickly. Too many (or too poorly considered), and things can get overwrought and confusing.

Remember, there are Emotive, non-sensical, and descriptive brands.

Evocative examples include Slack or Zoom. They allude to the function of the app but don't describe it literally.

Nonsensical examples include Kodak and X. They don't mean anything until the company embuses the name with meaning.

Descriptive examples include Facebook and Instagram. They more literally describe what the business or product does.

The older I get, and the more noisy the world gets, the more I prefer descriptive names.

This is particularly true when speaking about subbrands. I'm a big fan of Subrands rather than making up whole new names for everything.

E.g., If your company is called Facebook, your messaging product would be called Facebook Messenger. If your company is called Google then your spreadsheet product would be called Google Sheets.

It helps you focus all your branding efforts on your core brand while launching a logical and easy-to-remember suite of sub-products that immediately make sense without explanation.

What are some of your favorite brand strategies and naming conventions?