Tips on Brand Name Selection
When you think of soft drinks, the first names that pop up are Pepsi and Coca Cola; similarly for shoes, it is Nike and Adidas. What are these? They are brand names. The American Marketing Association (AMA) defines brand as a “name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of other sellers.”Although it sounds simple, a brand name is more than just a name; it is an identity that defines a brand and if used right, results in products finding their way to the baskets of the consumers.
However, product naming is not as easy as it sounds. It is definitely a painstaking effort. There are several instances where brand names had to be changed due to lexical differences among languages. For instance, a popular drink in Japan named Calpis is marketed in North America as Calpico since the word Calpis when pronounced sounds a lot like ‘cow piss’.Similarly, Irish Mist is not marketed in Germany because it means excrement in German language. As for RC Cola, it is known as ARCI Cola in Mexico as Mexicans are unable to pronounce the RC consonant cluster. Hence, brand naming process involves a lot of creative thinking and requires a deep knowledge of linguistics to come up with unique, exquisite yet simple names.
The brand name lives with the products or services forever and therefore it should not be developed in haste. The following are some tips on brand name selection.
Connect with the Customer
The brand name must instantly connect with the target prospects. The customers must be able to relate easily to the products or services. Otherwise, no amount of advertising campaign can help the consumers to associate the brand name with the product or service.
Easy to Recall
Select names that are easy to pronounce, spell and memorize. Easy to recall and real world names are always better than made up words since made up words require additional identity building programs to drive in the association between the product and the name.
Suggestive
Choose names that can easily communicate to the consumer about the product or service without much advertising.
Language filters
When planning to target international audience make sure that the brand name has gone through language filters. Nowords have the same meaning in all languages. Hence, extensive language filtering must be done to avoid faux pas.
Trademarkable
However unique, different or exceptional the choice of brand names be, if it is not trademarkable it is of no use.
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