The process of naming a company or a product may appear simple, but it is anything but. In general, hundreds, if not thousands, of names were considered for a final brand name that passed all of the evaluation criteria and was accepted by the customer. So, what is it about naming that makes it so difficult?
First, there is an abundance of brands on the market. Second, with the emergence of the Internet, a brand must compete not only inside a restricted geographic area, but also globally. Which brings us to the second point: the URL must be available. And no one wants to own ".com," ".net," ".info," or any other similarly obscure URL suffix. Also, do not add "company," "llc," or any other unusual modifiers to the end of the name.
It should be called:
- Simple to pronounce
- Simple to spell
- Not utilized by any other brand, particularly competitors in similar categories and marketplaces.
- Short and easy to remember
- Not contain unwanted or undesirable connotations, including in other languages or cultures
- Broad enough to outlast a product category or a company owner
- It is simple to trademark (and it is still possible to trademark)
- Depending on the type of brand, a ".com", ".org", or ".edu" URL is available.
If possible, the brand name should communicate the brand's distinctive value proposition. (Because this is a tall order, many brands should be content to rely on the tagline to accomplish this.)
In the dozens of naming efforts in which we have been involved, we have found that the best, most sought names are nearly always already taken. Great minds think alike, and it's possible that someone else in your category started a naming initiative before you, so they took the greatest name available.
It is often desirable to select a "out-of-the-box" name, something that does not instantly come to mind and may cause some client discomfort. Typically, these are the names with the most potential for success.
Before developing brand names, we frequently conduct customer research to determine brand and category connotations. We always hold numerous ideation sessions, and we usually create mind maps in at least one of them.
In a brand name project, it is critical to carefully manage client expectations and requests. If this is not done, a multi-month project with dozens of rounds of name generating may result. This is simply unnecessary.
An internal (business or group) name contest is the worst technique to naming. This nearly never leads in usable names. It also improves the likelihood that one of the names submitted by employees will be chosen.
There are various types of names. They range from invented (Kodak, Xerox) to associative descriptive (DieHard, RoadRunner) to wacky (Apple, BlackBerry) to generic descriptive (engines, lab equipment). Each has a purpose, and which is utilized depending on the sort of brand, its market position, and its planned duration, among other factors.
To summarize, there are numerous factors to consider when naming a brand, and it is not a simple task. Give a brand the attention it deserves when naming or renaming it.