Very good Nigel. I set myself up for that, but I think a company that's been around for more than 75 years is entitled to be an exception.

However, not only do you correctly point out that there are exceptions, you also draw attention to the fact that the more generic the name, the more opportunities it gives for people to suggest even litigate that you are passing off. (I believe that's an English legal term but I'm sure there are equivalents in other jurisdictions).

In 1972 Ford Europe introduced a large prestige car model they named "Granada". The MD of Granada Television tried to stop them because he'd already "got" (un-legal term) the name, on a chain of cinemas owned by his family since 1926 and transferred to their television company in 1954!

The case was found against them, not least perhaps because, if I recall correctly, the city of Granada in Spain had not registered any complaint despite its somewhat longer provenance.

With that in mind Jeff might like to know that in the UK there's a chain of pub restaurants called Chef and Brewer!

I've also been asked if I brew beer. Perhaps there is a wedding market for those who want their own personalized beer created by their videographer?? Hehe. Appreciate all the input.

Jason, will this new company target the C & D market? I hope I am not being rude but only the A listers can afford you right now =)

I think that is smart. This prevents you from sounding like 'Jake's Septic Tank Cleaning and Donut Shop'. It's difficult to do justice to presenting wedding and corporate video services on one web site without diluting the messages for both.

About a block away from my office is the headquarters of a communication company that owns several small telephone companies. I was chatting with the owner and he mentioned he had recently received a phone call from a lawyer representing Starbucks. The lawyer demanded that they change the name of the "Starbuck Telephone Company" as it infinges on their copyright. He said "You first..." since the Starbuck Telephone Company (located in Starbuck, MN) has been around more than 100 years! He said he's never heard from them again.

I am not sure of the legal ramifications, but you might consider creating labels for beer that you can slap on either home brew beer or commercial beer and use it as a giveaway. Most cities have at least one homebrew club where you might get some help or look up people from the Brew Your Own magazine annual label issue.

Hi Noel!

I would say it starts with the B crowd. Well within the range of current competitors. =)

Yeah, because Joe Simon Cinematic HD Wedding Video Vintage Super 8 Wedding Videography Austin Houston Dallas San Antonio TX has really had a difficult time branding his business. ;)

Indeed, Serendipity Studios is a fantastic name. In fact, it's a name I wanted to use as well. The reason I chose not to use it wasn't because your company already existed, it was because the domain name was being squatted on. So, in terms of real world functionality, the name ultimately failed the litmus test for the simple reason that I would have had to choose a domain name that was different than the name of my company. And regardless of how good a name is, that is a big marketing error.

How many times has someone heard great things about Serendipity Studios, then went online and typed in: serendipitystudios.com and been directed to an empty page or link farm. If you've lost just one customer because of this, I would argue that you've chosen the wrong name, regardless of how perfect it sounds.

Lucky for Serendipity Studios that they're so damn good that none of this really matters anyway. Because, in truth, a name isn't the keystone of your brand, it's the work you produce that defines your image.

Lance, I have to disagree with you. I would agree that having your business name and your domain name match makes it easier to market your brand. However, choosing two that don't match is not necessarily a 'big marketing error' in my opinion.

In our case we felt the name was very strong and had a lot of potential. It also fit us personally and on a philosophical level. The potential for a 'big marketing error' was really in how we chose to market the name, and the domain name is only a small part of that. So we developed a plan to be able to use the name and limit the difficulty of marketing it. It was worth the trade-off.

You mentioned people going online and typing in serendipitystudios-dot-com and not finding us, but in reality that's not an issue. When I hear of a new business (say Patti Cakes) and I want to check out their website, I wouldn't just go straight to a browser and type in patticakes.com. I'd go to Google and do a search for it. That's what most people do. And for us, if you go to Google and type in Serendipity Studios .. guess who comes up first? d;-)

Worst case scenario, someone types patticakes.com and gets a link farm page. What next? They just give up? Not likely. They're just going to go ahead and do a search at that point, so no harm done.

Anyways, those are my thoughts on this. As with everything in life, there is never just one right way to do anything. You have to find what works for you. d;-)

I do also agree that the work you do is a huge part of your brand. You can't just put a nice paint job on a junker car and hope that it sells well.

Deciding whether you want to have weddings in the title is probably the biggest decision.
On one side having "wedding" in the url really gives you a head start with search engines, absolutely no question about that. But on the other side a lot of your competitors will do the same.
A real world example would be a potential client searches "wedding video" and a lot of companies come up all with the word "wedding" in the title. However if a site that doesn't have "wedding" in the name manages to get a good search position, then that name is more likely to stick in the mind.
I would suggest that once you deal with that fundamental question, then how to; market/brand, who your market is, etc etc all seem to follow naturally.