The Dark Art of Brand Naming

Naming brands is a mysterious business. It can be a fraught process that, no matter what “fool-proof and reliable” methodology you’ve developed, produces ideas that stand at least a 75% chance of being torpedoed for a reason you never, ever saw coming.  We need to bear lots of things in mind, not least that the client probably feels they should be doing this themselves, and may well have been having nightmares of being present at their firstborn’s birth, only to be handed a baby with “Accenture” already written on the wrist tag.

So, a few thoughts based on the projects I’ve worked on that might minimize the trauma for both the sleepless client with the corporate branded baby and yourselves, the naming people.

1) Know what a name can and cannot do

A name can’t do everything. There are plenty of terrible companies out there who have pretty cool names – and vice versa. This means it’s really important to get to the root of why they’re asking you to name their brand – are they too close to it? Have they been wrestling with it for a while? Have they changed purpose? Are they putting distance between themselves and a past crisis? Or are they unclear about their trajectory, and are hoping by a miracle that their name will help them define that?

2) Establish the brand’s trajectory, not just its personality

It may sound obvious, but a naming project should look to the future above all. Ask what does this company want to be famous for in 10 years time, not just how you can express what they’re famous for now. This is a key question for new brands, but no less important for existing ones – they wouldn’t be changing their name if they weren’t thinking about the future.

3) Keep the client involved
Let’s face it, it would be weird to outsource naming your firstborn to a third party, and it probably feels quite strange for your client to be asking you to do their naming for them. Even if the client is unable to have numerous face to face meetings, use online brainstorming tools like Mindmeister (www.mindmeister.com) to make sure there is an online repository where they can add their thoughts to yours, even if it’s in the middle of the night and they’re in a hotel at a conference 10,000 miles away.

3) Embrace the subjectivity of naming
Consumers don’t respond to brands with a ticklist. So we should be wary of how rationalized we make the process. A brand name can be a real turn-off, or a real turn-on; I use these romantic terms (rather than “sales driver” or something like that) because emotional bonds are stronger than rational one. Don’t try to explain everything away with logic – if a name is cool to say, and helps create a unique personality, that can be every bit as strong as one that makes a clever statement about meeting point of brand promise and consumer need.

4) Cast the net wide, wider, and wider still

It puts a hell of a lot of pressure on yourself if you just sit down and hope for inspiration. So borrow from the world of product design a bit - make sure there’s a proper “divergent phase” to your process. Be as impractical and tangential as you like that this point. Look as far and wide as humanly possible for inspiration, deliberately cast the net wider than seems likely to be fruitful, and keep chucking ideas at the board. Bring in as many people as possible, at all stages. Get a mix of visual thinkers and verbal thinkers (a designer, for instance, will describe things in a different way to you, and makes more unpredictable associations between things that look alike, than more a verbal thinker, who often associate more literally).

5) Do as the Rolling Stones did
This is an expression of both the previous points – but when you hit a wall, do as Mick and Keith did. Womanising and hellraising aside, one of the Glimmer Twins’ songwriting methods was to piece together stories through unrelated newspaper headlines. So surround yourself with magazines and newspapers, skim read and just pick out words and phrases that appeal to you. Shout them out, string some together, and see what sticks. It forces you to break the walls of the brief, and work inwards from a much looser set of options or areas.

6) Plot the taxonomy of the market

After all the instinctive, random word-association stuff, you’ll need to bring the project back to the realities of the market a bit. The client no doubt has a very clear idea about what their competitors do and what their brands stand for. But it can be useful to plot those competitors onto a taxonomy chart, to show what kind of names their competitors use, and how that contributes to carving out a niche in the market. Are there lots of literal names in this category, without many experiential ones? Is it a market full of made-up, wacky names? If so, why? It can help show an opening in the market, or at the very least the areas to be avoided like the plague. Naming agency igor have a very thorough taxonomy chart with examples for several categories (www.igorinternational.com).

7) Test to find the best

Make a long list, then test it using some key questions to develop your shortlist. They might be a bit pseudo-scientific, but you’ve got to thin the list out somehow, and each will have different strengths - some names will express the brand’s function better than others, while others will be very memorable, and a few might perfectly encapsulate the brand’s vision for the future. They’ve all got to sound reasonable in their context – so if it’s a new toy, could you hear a kid asking their parents for it? Or if it’s a business, how does it sound if you were to answer the phone with it? The best will tick numerous boxes, though it’s unlikely any will tick them all. So give each name a total score and take forward the best – and always allow a wildcard or two to make the shortlist.

8) Never present just one “right answer”

Share at least four options when you present. There’s never just one right answer, so make sure the client isn’t expecting a single solution. Visualise the name using four of five key images, and pick a font that expresses the name. Don’t make it look like a logo (unless you’ve got time to properly develop one for each) – just do enough to give each a distinct feel.