Today we’re sharing another tellthetruths video about the history of a brand name. This time we’re focusing on the Amazon brand, and you might be surprised to hear some of the other names that this juggernaut almost had, instead.
Call Me By My Name: AMAZON
We hope you enjoy. Please share any other name histories you know, or would like us to cover.
This video originally appeared in LinkedIn.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Hey guys, it’s Rebeca with BrandTrue, and I want to do another one of those sort of “Name History” videos. This one is Amazon. So, Amazon, such an interesting brand that we could talk about in so many ways. It’s a really interesting name, but it very nearly didn’t have that name. So, it was… Some people don’t even know this, which boggles my mind, but it started just selling books. I remember when it was like… “selling books online. Are they crazy?” But, so they had names like Book Mall. I think Book Mall was very close to being it at a certain point, but they also played around with a lot of names at the beginning of the alphabet, like Awake and AARD, A-A-R-D, just to show up first in search engines. Browse, which makes sense with books. And even Relentless, which I don’t understand, it sounds kind of hostile.
Finally, they landed on Cadabra, like Abracadabra, but that’s kind of long. And it was going to be Cadabra, and a trademark attorney who was supposed to file Cadabra heard Cadaver. And once they realized that you mishear it as Cadaver, look, that was the kiss of death for that name. But, Jeff Bezos went flipping through a dictionary, and when he saw Amazon, he really liked it because it’s expansive, and… Yeah, and enormous, and the connection to nature, he liked it. It’s hard to imagine the world without Amazon, and it’s hard to imagine the world without Amazon being called Amazon. Then, they created the A to Z, and the logo, the little arrow. I mean, it’s just a pretty great name. So, I love these name stories; wanted to share that one with you. Let me know if you know anything more about Amazon’s history or if you have another name history that you’d like to share. Bye!
