Naming Archives - Branding and Marketing

What Key Points Business Owners Ought to Consider When Re-Naming and Re-Branding a Company

Renaming a company, product or service is extremely important to creating a brand or marketing. It can be more difficult than it looks on face value. Expensive, yes. But sometimes very necessary.

After you’ve brainstormed the lists of names, here are some of the considerations when evaluating the name:

Your customers, employees, and competitors
Positioning strategy
Getting found issues: alphabetical friendly for directories
Easy to spell for searching and if you have multi word domains, be careful.
Easy to pronounce: wii, yahoo, kazaa, hulu
Before you start, set some criteria so you know when you have the right new name (some people’s votes count more than others.)
Sometimes the favorite name doesn’t pass legal, so you should select several versions of the new name
Trademark issues

Refer to these helpful links from Branding & Marketing when you’re in the midst of a rebranding and re-naming exercise with your company:

Image credit: Dacky, used with permission: Dreamstime Stock Photos

A Key to Marketing: Selecting a Strong Name for Your Product

Naming a new product is challenging. Consider:

Pronounciation
Meaning - both connotative (what the name conjures up in your mind!) & denotative (what the dictionary says it means)
The dot com you’ll use and is it available?
Easy to spell??!
Trademarkable?
Appeals in the right way to your target audience
International flair?

If you’re interested in reading other posts where I’ve discussed these keys in more detail check out these posts:

Finding Your Brand Name: Tips for Creating a GREAT Name

Over the past several weeks Martin Jelsema, at The Branding Blog, has offered a series of tips for naming a brand to use for a product, company or new category.

Since my company just completed a similar project for a client, I know the value of his suggestions. Here are his first seven naming tips:

Naming Tip 1: Reverse the order, alliteration & rhyming Example: Strategic Innovations becomes Innovations Strategic which is more memorable.

Naming Tip 2: Action verbs; possessive names Examples: Hooked on Phonics, Victoria’s Secrets

Naming Tip 3: Use reference books Everyone knows about the Thesaurus & Dictionary but Martin links to some unusual ones.

Naming Tip 4: Use parts of two words; alternative spellings Example: Webolution, Byerlympics, Champale

Naming Tip 5: Descriptive root word; colors; numbers Example: Red Bull, Yellow Book

Naming Tip 6: Initials; geographic places Example: N’Orlins Gumbo, El Paso Mexican foods or small towns like: Cold Creek, Green Leaf, Sweet Water

Naming Tip 7: Two-part proper names; visual devices Example: McNuggets, O’Cedar, MacFrugal

Check back at his blog often, because he keeps adding to the series! For instance, his last tip was just posted this past Friday.

Martin is a generous blogger and doesn’t hold back in sharing his knowledge. To me, his blog a prime example of mentoring, learning and the power of web 2.0. Thanks, Martin!

Technorati Tags: Marketing, Branding, Brand Names, Brainstorming Names, Naming, Martin Jelsema

Marketing uncomfortable subjects: Euphemisms and Naming

Euphemisms — making uncomfortable subjects more appealing. Many times a marketer’s job is to put a favorable spin… or at least a neutral spin… on some nasty realities.

Case in point: diseases. Thanks to TMBrandingCap.com for the info on the Brand Institutes’ renaming of diseases and symptoms of the disease, funded by the drug companies.

The key, according to the Brand Institute’s President, is making up a name that describe the symptoms in a nice way … making it okay to seek help preferably with the client’s drugs.

Sure looks like the Brand Institute has the corner on Euphemisms and naming popular drugs.

Watching the Lunesta commerical with that calming butterfly (or is it a moth since it flies at night) you can’t help but feel that this drug is the answer. Never mind the list of nasty side effects the voice over describes.

Ahhh Marketing.

Technorati Tags: Marketing, Branding, Brand, Naming