What’s In A Name?

Quite often we name things for our clients. We re-name their businesses, their products or services and, sometimes their children.

No, not really, although  some clients seem to place a similar level of importance to the re-branding, re-naming projects we work on.

In fact, there was one client  (a certain Mr Head),  who might have been wise to ask our advice before he named his son, Richard.  You can imagine how tough life at school would have been with the inevitable nickname, “Dickhead”.

Naming is not a random, “let’s thing of something wacky” exercise, despite some people may think. Nor is it  “loads of fun” as one friend suggested. Quite the contrary, we have a process, based on what the name needs to achieve. Like every project, we need to explore all the options and often come up with 100-200 ideas that will communicate all of the necessary requirements.

Here are a few issues we might need to address, very often with one word.

• The target market – who are they?
• What does the name need to communicate?
• What is the desired brand image/perception?
• Should it be descriptive, or not?
• Is it traditional?
• Or, should it be cool?
• How should it be positioned?
• Brand leader, or contender?
• Alternative, or mainstream?
• Affordable, or premium?

And, so on.

By the time we reach the presentation stage, we’ve usually produced a shortlist of 2-4 recommendations, and most likely identified what we feel is the clear winner. All will have a rationale as to why we feel this best represents the company/product/service. And, we’ll have ensured that the name is available both as a URL and a business name, if necessary.

These are just the starting points, of course. Every project has its own requirements and they tend to become increasingly specific the more they are analysed. For example, we named a new charity register last year, which was a kind of sub-brand of  a well known Australian charity.

It should have been simple, but among the key prerequisites included a need to create an entirely new name, one that should not be associated with the major brand.  It was to be aimed at women, but not excluding men.  It couldn’t mention the cause directly, because it would be a potential “turn-off” for a sector of the target market.  The client also wanted it to sound modern and progressive, without being too overt. And, it had to appeal to adults of all ages, from 17 to 70.

Easy? Yeah, right. Somehow, we produced a result that an entire committee agreed upon – eventually.

Then, there was the national industry skills council, which had a long, tedious and totally misleading name, one that made them sound like an insurance company. During our first meetings, when the issue was raised, the CEO declared that the name would NOT change. Clearly this was a sensitive issue internally.

Some months later, we had created a completely new name for the council and nobody was more proud of the new direction than the same CEO. These issues are rarely painless, but being able to re-focus an organisation and see them go on to enjoy a renewed enthusiasm for their business is very satisfying.

There’s no doubt about it, being asked to re-name anything is fraught with potential danger.  Highly charged emotions, frayed tempers, politics and indecision are often par for the course. Producing a viable list of names isn’t easy, but getting a number of people to embrace just one of them is frequently a very painful process and much more difficult.

So, when you see a really daft brand or product name out there, you can be sure it will have plenty of history. If it’s a real stinker, you can be sure it was chosen by a committee, probably a large one.

Posted by Ian Minter