Easily Remembered Makes Big Money - Here’s Why!

The human mind is a busy place. Getting the attention of another person is always a complex process, but it’s the cornerstone of marketing. Fortunately, the basic concepts of learning theory and memory can assist advertisers in their mission. This article explains why Domain Branding will leverage your domain name to become a powerful marketing tool.

It is part and parcel of the ItsABrand philosophy from PracticalGrowth. This philosophy believes that there are almost measurable financial benefits to meaningful & easily remembered corporate identities.

Anyone involved in business wants to know how to put out a message that will be seen, heard and remembered. How can this be done cost effectively when media is being transformed on a daily basis? How do advertisers navigate in a cluttered marketplace so that their message will be remembered?

This is not intended to be an academic article. It deals with two issues: what is known about mind, memory and learning, and how can an advertiser use these theories to get messages remembered cost effectively?

The media are changing dramatically and traditional assumptions it about may no longer work. Mixing new with existing media is the marketer’s latest challenge. While media is being transformed, the non-controllable factors of brain structure and memory capacity may not. In fact, understanding the way in which people learn traditionally may be more important than ever.

Responding to an advert is a learning activity, but not all learning factors can be influenced by the advertiser. The factors that are not controllable include prior experiences, from childhood onwards, brain structure, intelligence and genetics.

The theoretical limit of remembering is two bits per second¹. You can learn up to two new little pieces of information each second. This produces only a few hundred megabytes over a lifetime, which means there is far more to learn that humans can cope with. It also means advertisers are fighting for very limited space. What can you do to be the one who grabs the two bits?

A message not remembered is a dollar spent without a return. Retention increases with repetition, especially when the repetition brings with it associated memories of satisfying experiences. But forgetting is greatest immediately following learning. How can learning theory help make your promotions memorable?

• Learning theory and how advertisers motivate are based on four assumptions: Drive, Cue, Response and Reinforcement.
• Drive is an internal state of tension requiring action—this computer’s too slow!
• Cue is an environmental stimulus—your computer ad.
• Response is the reaction—hey, that looks like good value!
• Reinforcement is a rewarding for the response—quality service which brings customers back.

The major theories of learning are the various forms of behaviorism and the more recent cognitive theories. Behaviorism simply assumes that we learn and are conditioned by outside influences. Cognitive theories assume greater inner choices.

Behaviorism's bottom line is that we will respond only as we have been conditioned to respond, and the greater amount of conditioning produces the greater response. These assumptions imply that whichever advertiser has the most money—and can buy the most frequent messages—will win. To the advertiser with a limited budget, this would be very limiting and discouraging indeed.

The more recent theories of cognitive learning grant a great deal more complexity to the individual. These theories state that learning is more complex: people are not simply conditioned but also utilize problem solving and insightful thinking. These processes are what an effective advertiser must understand during this period of rapidly changing media.

Recent theories of memory² suggest that there are two factors involved: conscious and unconscious. While we are used to the idea of conscious remembering, there are also automatic, unconscious processes going on in the mind which assess how familiar an item is. This suggests that advertising which leverages an existing familiarity will be more effective.

You’ve spent a tremendous amount of time and money on advertising. How can you use learning theories to leverage New Media so that you can ensure customers will remember your message? How can the process of Drive, Cue, Response and Reinforcement work in the most cost-effective way?

Domain Branding is the advertiser’s first exposure that will generate a Response from a consumer. It is the point at which hundreds of thousands of consumers make the choice to visit or move on. It is also the point of return. Of all the many websites you have visited, which do you remember? Which will you return to? Learning theory teaches us that some messages of associations will be remembered best amid the clutter of messages in the marketplace. The names which are most easily remembered bring associated good memories.

The decay rate from ad messages (i.e. forgetting them) can be reduced by high meaningfulness and even incongruence—a ridiculous or nonsensical association.

More meaningful or more vivid material is retained longer.

A name that creates a disparity that jogs normal associations—something bizarre—will be more likely retained if it is meaningful. ³

Based on this research PracticalGrowth has developed a Domain Names Retention Program based on meaningful and incongruent domain names that may dramatically reduce advertising costs. That is why Domain Branding based on familiar and good experiences tends to be remembered longer, requiring less repetition and fewer advertising dollars. Your customers remember you—and they come back.

Domains for the study were selected primarily on memorable branding correlated to the underlying theories of human recall. What produced satisfying memories in the prospects’ brick and mortar life and bring the greatest remembering at the lowest cost between all media?

We asked how it was possible to crossover and leverage learning theories. What will most likely be remembered longest and forgotten slowest? PracticalGrowth tested hundreds of names against consumer recall and selected only those domains that were most quickly remembered and most slowly forgotten.

Names that were retained in new media most quickly and forgotten slowest were names that reminded the listener of traditional media and life experiences. PracticalGrowth chose only those domains that required the fewest repetitions to be recalled and forgotten last.

Domain names were selected from familiar expressions like ACloseCall.com and incongruence like Elarming.com. Other cost-reducing domain categories include unique spoken phrases, memorable one-worders, keyword rich domains easily found by search engines and familiar phrases that humorously mirror culture and society. Computer-generated names that had no associations were avoided.

A domain that was not already within human memory would simply have to cost more to make it memorable. Dot.com makes them even more memorable because we hear, see and recall them instantly. In all cases, .net and .org were avoided since they are not part of everyday experiences. Attempts to use dotcoms that were simply different (OfficeSuppliersX.com) were avoided unless they were memorable and musical such as ScoobieDoobieDoo.com. The motive for using slight differences was usually economic. A computer-generated domain is cheaper to register than buying one or hiring a naming consultant.

The most easily remembered domain categories were:

Unique Spoken Phrases which jog unconscious memories. Because they sound the way we speak they are recalled most easily and forgotten slowest. Such expressions included:

• AQuotePlease.com
• Cost-Effectively.com
• and a wide assortment of others indelibly imprinted on the collective psyche.

Memorable One Worders including neologisms from common and uncommon meanings that have already been imprinted on the collective mind were easily remembered. For example:

• Conniptions.com
• Digitizable.com
• eCentivize.com
• Elarming.com
• iCentivize.com
• Magicianship.com
• Netologism.com

These were most easily remembered since people recalled them before even hearing them. Unconscious memory was working here. :

Keyword-Rich Domains were easily recalled because they are familiar phrases like:

• eCustomerFocus.com
• InternetBusinessLibrary.com

Phrases Mirroring Culture Humorously riveted attention because they were incongruent and familiar:

• eConniptions.com
• eDealize.com
• eFieFoeFum.com

Generic Names without gimmicky associations like:

• Ecommerce-Cheap.com
• MultimediaCheap.com
• NetsOfficialHome.com
• OfficialHomeRun.com
• PriceConscious.com

These were recalled even with two or more word length.

¹Ralph Merkle: "How Many Bytes In Human Memory"

²Jacoby (1991): Two Factor Theory

³Karen Finlay, University of Guelph