What makes you remember one brand over another? It seems that some brands are covered in glue and others are made of Teflon – that is, some stick and some slide right in and out of our minds. What is the glue that makes a brand name stick in your brain?

There are three techniques that marketers use to help make brands stick with you. The first technique has to do with the words that are used to describe the brand – or I might more properly say, the lack of words. To make a brand memorable, it is better if it is short. In fact, I like to use the seven-syllable rule. There is something about our brains that can easily retain phrases that are kept to seven syllables or less. Beyond that, we may remember, but will have difficulty doing so. In fact, we tend to shorten long names either by using initials, acronyms or just dropping excess words. Take a look at these examples and see how consumers have shortened them and made them stick more than the original brand name:

Kentucky Fried Chicken to KFC

Hewlett-Packard to HP

The Washington Post to WaPo

Government Employees Insurance Company to GEICO

Consumer Value Stores to CVS

Costco Wholesale to Costco

The best brands are those that keep their names short.

However, it takes more than a short name to stick in the consumer’s mind. You also need something that is catchy and unique. For instance, which of these short words catch your attention:

Taxi or Uber

Casual Footwear or Vans

Corn Chips or Doritos

China or Wedgewood

Sunglasses or Ray-Bans

If you name your brand something that no one else is using, especially if it is a word that creates a visual in people’s minds, it will have a better chance of sticking. Here is the kicker – the name doesn’t necessarily have to do anything with the product or service. What does an Apple have to do with computers and phones? What do Gorillas have to do with extra sticky tape? Name your brand something that is catchy and call it something that is different than everything else. Uniqueness sticks.

Here is the third marketing technique: Oversaturate it! Use your brand name all over the place. People remember what they keep seeing time and again. Sometimes average brand names become household names over more catchy names simply because of the marketing push behind one or the other. Don’t let your brand go unnoticed! You have to push it on your target market. Repetition is how we remember. Some have suggested the human brain needs to hear something 30 times before it is remembered long term. Whatever the magic number of repetition is, one thing is clear: our brains are stimulated to remember better and retain things for a longer time by being exposed to the same information time and again.

If you want your brand to stick, make sure your marketing is making it easy on the consumer to do so.