First step in Branding is about registering ur product and it's name(key) inSide a human brain like storing in a hash map!
Our brain already has so many products(visually also) and so many names(keys/words) mapped!
All the words that we already have in our brain have some weight (like in neural network) by default.
Example: when any1 says coco-cola our brain automatically maps that word with a picture of red background or a bottle of liquid in black color.
Based on weight-age of words in our brain we map some words as sensitive words , some to quality attribution, some to good and some to low/ bad. And this weight age of words will surely depend on people to people but it can be generally clustered with segmentation of people based on few attributes like educational qualification, social background, economical strength etc.. (Importance of identifying target audience)
Now, the first stage in the game of branding is that the brand owner has to decide if wants to create a new hash entry in a brain or use the existing key to map his product with.Typically new words(key) are used when the audience can clearly visualize the exact product because when a new word and new product is registered in the brain and if it does not have any other mapping the audience tend to forget easily. A complete new entry in audience brain will be relatively tough to register as it involves huge marketing and branding costs(ofcourse time too). When the product is new and if the consumers cannot visualize what the product is about, the brand owner to avoid risk typically uses a existing key(name) that already is attributed in some good sense in his target audience mind.
Example: apple computers - the guys who first wanted to sell pc in mass(consumer market).
