One of my clients has engaged me to develop two brand names for new products. I love this type of work because it requires you to think both inside and outside of a box. How experienced are you if challenged to name that brand?
Brand name development requires beautiful constraints. It is necessary to have very clear parameters or filters to evaluate ideas. You can’t just blue sky brand marks without a framework or structure to the work.
In my career, I named (or was part of a team that named) dozens of products including a meat snack (ROUGH CUT), a soft-float made of luxurious foam (AQUARIA), a sparkling wine cork (ZEST!), technology marks (PLANTCORC TECHNOLOGY) a tagline for a charitable bakery (BAKING A DIFFERENCE) and a goat cheese that is marinated in olive oil and herbs (CHEVOO).
I thought I’d share a few suggestions should you be faced with the marketing challenge of naming a company, a division, a project, product or a service.
- Start by agreeing on the main attributes of the brand. It helps when you can define them, write them down and get everyone involved to agree to them. For example, if the name has to communicate that the product is organic, you want to include that as a filter. If the product is very expensive, you’ll want the name to communicate luxury or high-end.
- Does existing architecture exist for framing the naming? You may be working with a clean slate where you can use words in any language or even invented words. It helps to get agreement about what you can and can’t do up front. If all your product names are French words, then a new product needs to be a French word if it fits within the brand’s framework. Combining words together can bring an idea to life. You may want to use one or two words in a portmanteau (For example, Netflix, from internet and flicks (slang for the movie), Sony, from sonus (Latin for sound) and sonny (slang for a youngster) and Travelocity, travel, and velocity.
- Define the process. It is very helpful to outline who will work on this project and what everyone’s roles and responsibilities will be. I like using a RACI chart. (Who is responsible, accountable, informed and a consultant). Decide how the process will flow, the timing and who will make the final decision. You want all of this clear from the start, so you have good project management in place and a definite due date for all the deliverables. Will the name be trademarked? You’ll need time to allow a trademark attorney to have sufficient time to review the final choices and to help identify possible conflicts within the classes of businesses you may want to file.
- Open the flood gates. With the key attributes, architecture and process defined, then you can get your team involved in brainstorming. Whether you do this as a team event or individually, the leader has to share the parameters of the project and ask for ideas. It is very helpful to get several people creating raw and rough ideas without eliminating anything in the first pass. One idea always leads to another so just try and find plenty of ideas that meet the criteria. Make sure that with each name you capture, you have an explanation why the name should be considered and how it fits with your key brand attributes.
- Organize the concepts for review. I like to put all the final ideas into alphabetical order in PowerPoint with a brief explanation of why a word or phrase was chosen. Don’t do any logo or design treatment. Use only one font in the whole deck. Don’t get distracted by design yet — focus on words.
- Share the deck in advance of a team meeting. Ask each participant to come prepared to identify their top choices and their bottom options. It helps to eliminate ideas quickly and can help move the process along. Depending on the size of the group, you may need an hour to argue for your favorite ideas — but you also want to leave time to vote on the top 3 finalists.
- Take three ideas to the attorney for review. When you can’t take a small number of top choices to a trademark attorney, she can do a quick review and knock out any apparent conflicts. It may be necessary to do a more comprehensive review (called a Core Search). It is a complete consideration of possible conflicts. Although not cheap, it is much less expensive than surprises and litigation.
- Make a final decision. Once you have the advice from the attorney, pick one person to represent and argue for each of the three finalist names. Have them explain why they think their name should win and, if time permits, they can come forward with a few mock up design ideas to bring the word or phrase to life.
- Those who are the making the final decision should be like a jury hearing the final presentations. As a winner emerges, a little celebration helps to launch the birth of a new brand. Don’t forget the value of a small party for the team.
Of course, this is just a rough outline of the process. The real work begins once you choose a name as there are many choices to be made.
A brand name can live for a long time, so you don’t want to rush the process. Your company will spend a lot of money on this name so invest the time to do it right.
Naming a brand isn’t the name game, Shirley.
One of my superpowers is naming brands and developing taglines. Need help with developing a new product name, let’s connect. Call me at 919 720 0995. Learn more about my brand naming services.
Photo credit: http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/pictures/180000/velka/choosing-a-name.jpg#.V7ii63Ll7WA.link
