Brand Naming
“What’s in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” or so goes the famous Shakespearean quote. It is true that a (brand) name is nothing by itself. Unless it is imbued with a strong value and a purpose that resonates with the target audience, a ‘name’ does not stand to further your ‘name.’ Capturing the brand essence and the core of the business most effectively, the brand purpose has to be translated through both your verbal and visual identity.
That is the power that a single syllable or two can have; to make or break your brand identity. It can take your business ahead or break down the building blocks of your business. A brand like ‘Caterpillar’ stands out because the outdoor ruggedness of the brand is related through the name.
Brand Naming: Kickstarting the Business and Brand
Just as a name can limit you, a unique and memorable one can also establish your brand identity in today’s competitive market, with too many brands providing the same services and sounding alike. In the context of branding your business right, which has not yet asserted its identity, this is a crucial juncture. Consider investing in something as basic as brand naming if you want to kickstart with a good response and up your brand recall.
We’re always talking about how a brand is so much more than just a name, logo and mark. However, the name that you assign to your brand is the discerning attribute that gives your brand an image or a personality. A sound brand naming escalates your product or service from being a thing like to being a person like.
Steps towards Successful Brand Naming
A brand name is one that stays on in the memory of the people and the business organizations you are aiming to reach out to. Hence the methodology you develop towards brand naming is crucial. These are a few crucial steps to brand naming that ABND follows:
Identify the USP’s of your brand. Your brand name should not only reflect what you are selling but should also communicate the essence of your business. Amazon refers to the second longest river in the world, reflecting the vastness of this e-commerce site without really spelling out that it is an e-commerce website.
As a business organization, who are you communicating to? Zero in on your target audience and build your concept note and go about brand naming accordingly.
How did the brand name “Instagram” come into being? It is a portmanteau of “instant camera” and “telegram.” The owner wanted the word to be easy to pronounce, spell and follow the “right here, right now” concept. This is the concept which connects with the youth of today, particularly the post-millennial living in the era of capturing stories in images instantly, so it worked with the power of effective targeting.
Does the business want to go local or is there a possibility of extending services to the larger world? Maybe a brand name that’s glocal would work the best for your business then! A brand name may also go beyond English, if the name can still contain within it a sense of familiarity with the masses.
For instance, a spiritual organization which wanted to reach out to the entire world and not limits its possibilities of reaching out to the world named itself The Art of Living.
These are a few filters to keep in mind when naming a potent company and building the organizational foundation.
How can ABND ace your brand naming?
At ABND, we have a very focused approach to brand naming. First, all the brand names in both competitive and cross-category, are listed down. Attributes associated with each word are extrapolated. The words are then bucketed according to their attributes. Looking at the brand values and the brand essence, some buckets are eliminated. We decode the brand essence, realign values, and work on only those word buckets which we find relevant to your business.
Big brands, as well as small businesses, have all considered their names with as much seriousness as they have looked into the quality of their services, be it a brand like Coca-Cola or one like a Paper Boat. A brand is no longer what you tell the consumers what it is. It is about what consumers tell each other how you are. It is the journey the consumer has taken from ‘Let’s video chat’ to ‘Let’s Skype.’ Brand naming not only effects the way you are referred to, it might also influence the local parlance of your users.
Do not shrug off professional help in going through this creative and time-consuming process of brand naming that determines what the end consumer will perceive you to be. At ABND brand naming is expert-led, headed by an in-house naming expert. It is not a process which is seen in isolation from developing the essence and positioning of the brand. To build a successful brand all the methods have to go strategically hand in hand and that is the course of methodology here.
