How Not to Name

Mr. Shore at Landor pens a brilliant article on how not to name brands, I feel like translating it into Romanian and giving it away freely to passers by in the street. Fortunately I have some IP grooming, so I know better. But the article still rocks, and it's written with plenty of gusto.

It basically gives six great tips: a) brand naming takes serious time; b) there is no stereotypical formula for success; c) intrinsic meaning is recommended; d) not anyone is a suitable source of name proposals--in fact, very few folks are; e) brand naming is not a democratic, consensual process--only give a say to those who really matter to the business; f) test carefully--focus groups may not be what you really want.

Go read it. Oh, and I got it via Landor's small yet formidable rivals on Post St.

Comments

[ioana]

I’m still a student at the Communications University. I have a big project, can you help me with a question I got: can you tell me if brand refreshment is the same thing as brand revitalisation. Also, a brand refreshment must imply a change of slogan and visual elements or, by case, finding new ways of expressing the same things (keeping the visual and the slogan) can be called a brand refreshment? thank you very much

[Ştefan Liuţe]

What I can definitely tell you is this: Branding as a discipline is seriously drawn back by terminological ambiguity. In plain English, brand 'refreshment' or 'revitalisation' mean different things to different people and arbitrariness rules when picking words to describe things in branding. In my view, 'refreshment' and 'revitalisation' are the same thing. As a matter of fact, all 're-' terms except for 'rebranding' mean 'a minor or superficial change to a brand'. 'Rebranding' alone means 'a major, significant change to a brand' and is reserved, in my view, to processes that are more than skin-deep. Either of your two scenarios below can be a brand refreshment. But a change of slogan and visual elements would be meaningless without more profound changes to the brand. Such change is usually associated with a rebranding in the sense I gave the word above. The latter scenario is more typical of a brand 're-whatever'.