Brand name creation

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[edit] Background

Deciding on a brand name and identity can be among the most critical decisions any company will face.

The development of brand names and identities should be based on multiple factors: customer preferences, current competitive names, existing company product names, and market fit. Customer preference plays a key role in this process.

There are 5 broad categories of brand names:

• Functional: the name explains what the company does (JetBlue)
• Created: a name based on an invented word (Dasani)
• Practical: a name that describes the experience or emotion of using the product (Quicken)
• Suggestive: a name that uses an existing word out of context creating depth and emotion when properly executed (Amazon)
• Wild Cards: a name that defies categorization by overlapping two or more of the categories (Silk)

Determining which type of name is correct for a brand is not a simple process, not should it be a random one. It all depends on your brand. Is your company a conservative company that needs to be seen as professional in every aspect of its business? In this case, a suggestive name probably not correct for the brand. Is yours a new company on the cutting edge of web design? In this case, a functional name is probably too "stuffy." This is why understanding your brand is so important before coming up with a name.

[edit] The Components of the Brand Naming Process

1. Develop Company “Wish List”

This will help you better understand what your company may be looking for in a name. A carefully designed survey, can be used to find out what type of brand name might fit your brand and what your company culture might support. Anyone who might be a key stakeholder with the potential to kill the new name should be involved on some level with this portion of the process.

2. Competitive Analysis

Knowing what your competition looks like and what they are using for branding will help you find a position in the market for your brand via your new name. Seek to go where no one in your industry has gone before.

It is critical to understand not just direct competitors, but also major players in closely related industries.

3. Positioning and Brand Blueprint

This portion of the process is critical. This helps to define "who" your brand is and what it is to become. This defines the personality of the brand and guides how you will create product messages and design creative. Without this step, you are likely to end up with a name that just doesn’t quite fit your brand.

If you define your brand first, you can tailor a name specifically for it. Does your brand look like a “Google” or a “JetBlue”? This portion of the process tells us what your brand looks like, so you can find a matching name. If you have not done this analysis of your brand, it is best to do this before beginning any naming process.

4. Name Development

This is where the creative part begins. Taking everything you know about your brand including its market positioning and the information from the Brand Blueprint, you must determine which category of names fits your brand best.

Once a category is selected, the next step usually entails generating literally hundreds of different name options and hundreds of words and phrases that are associated with your brand. From all of this, the best names start to emerge and stand out from the pack.

Warning: Most companies are not capable of handling this internally. It is highly recommended that external copywriters be used for this portion of the process. Alternatively, you can farm out the entire creative portion of the naming process to a company that specializes in brand name development.

Once a handful of potential names begin to emerge and seem to fit the brand based on all of the insight gathered thus far, each name should be given a number of taglines to match. If a name allows for many different types of taglines that take the brand in many different directions, then the name can be considered to have "depth." Generally, a brand name that has depth is likely to create a positive response with customers. These names move forward in the process.

Names that reach this far in the process should then be screened against some objective criteria. Often names are selected simply because they "feel right" or people on the naming committee like them. However, this is often not the best way to rate the quality of a potential name. Some of the objective areas to consider are the following:

• Depth: previously discussed
• Look: view the name printed, does it look right?
• Sound: say the new word out loud, it must be easily pronouncable and not sound like something else
• Uniqueness: how unique this name is among its peers in the same industry
• Positioning: the name should be meaningful to the industry in which it will be used
• Approachability: the "human" features of the name, does it allow for any kind of attachment?
• "Coolness": the amount of excitement the name generates when discussed.

The names can be rated against these areas and a score from 1 to 10 applied. The highest scoring names should be considered objectively superior to the others. They should move forward in the process.

5. Trademark and Domain Screening

This is the most straightforward part of the process. Through careful screening you must determine your chances of being able to trademark the new name. If the answer is a clear “no”, the name should be quickly discarded. Those that are borderline must be investigated further by a qualified attorney and those that have a strong chance of passing through the trademark process can move forward (but should still be formally evaluated by an attorney before large investments are made in the new name).

This step should also includes domain searches to determine if there is a strategy to secure your brand’s presence on the web. If the brand name is not available as a domain, you can look for modifiers that could be added without diluting the brand (e.g., Royal.com versus Royalpaints.com) This is most often necessary with Practical names. Another alternative is the use a simple tagline as the domain if the domain that matches the brand name directly cannot be secured. For example, if the brand is "Royal" for a new line of paints, royal.com is already taken. Royalpaints.com may be an option, but also you could choose onecoatperfection.com and use the tagline as the domain. This will be memorable and linked to the brand.

6. Testing

Through your market research channels, you must try to find likely customers to ask them about your name. Testing at this stage ensures that you don’t waste a lot of time and money developing creative for a brand name that will fall flat in the market.

It is critical that you apply proper screening to the potential subjects of your test. First, you must ensure that they are targets for your brand. If someone will never buy your line of skateboards, for example, a 60 year old woman, don't include them in your survey panel. Their responses are not valid. Second, you should then determine if they have interest in purchasing your product or using your service (without the name). This is especially important for new products to the market. You need to ensure that your name is tested against those that are likely to be interested in your product. Again, you are seeking to test with your most likely customers. That is, the customers whose feedback matters the most.

[edit] Appendix

The Pros and Cons of Name Categories

Functional:

Examples: JetBlue, Citibank, General Electric, Marathon Oil, Animal Crackers

Pros: Simple and to the point, tells you what the company does

Cons: Easily lost in a sea of similar sounding names (like all the names with “net” in them, for example) requiring massive marketing investments to stand out, difficult to create lasting emotional bonds

Created:

Examples: Dasani, Agilent, Snapple, Google, Oreo

The are divided into two types, completely made up (Oreo) or drawn from other languages, typically, Latin or Greek roots (Agilent)

Pros: Easy to get through trademark process and find domain names, lack negative connotations that existing words might have, generally memorable and engaging, many marketing opportunities

Cons: Difficult to get “corporate” approval for due to unique nature, if too complex and unlike existing words, if difficult to pronounce or spell they are quickly forgotten by customers

Practical:

Examples: Quicken, Explorer, InfoSeek, Super Fresh, Intuit

Pros: Usually make sense to customers, links the customer’s experience with the name, easier for new entrants in a sector, easily approved by “corporate”

Cons: More difficult to trademark because of multiple uses (e.g., "Explorer" is both a car and web browser), less effective long-term, likely many names in an industry will bunch up in this category

Suggestive:

Examples: Yahoo!, Amazon, Virgin, Sirius, Oracle

Pros: Rare, so a powerful differentiator, multidimensional and engaging, creates a bigger brand image beyond the product or company

Cons: Must link with positioning or a big disconnect for customers may occur, tough to get through “corporate”, too abstract for some marketing teams to work with (the “I don’t get it” factor)

Wild Cards:

A handful of names seem to be in more than one category and almost defy categorization. Some of these are highly effective, while others are just try to do too much.

Pros: can be extremely powerful, shares the pros of all of the categories it overlaps

Cons: may be “all over the board” and unable to gain traction due to customer confusion, shares the cons of all the categories it overlaps

Examples:

Silk…functional, practical, and suggestive….and powerful.

Land Rover…functional, practical, suggestive…and pretty lifeless.

[edit] External Resources

Brand Naming Companies

Brand Institute [1]

Focus Fields [2]

Master-McNeil [3]

Igor [4]

Name Base [5]

Brand Solutions [6]

Strategic Name Development [7]