A great brand name is one of the most powerful forces in branding, marketing and advertising. A brand name that wields that much power can only come through a powerful positioning strategy. Communicating brand strategy is key to a great brand name.The most critical aspect of naming a brand is not the name, but the strategic positioning behind it. Great brand names are easy-to-understand, pronounce and translate across languages.


Brand Name Development: What makes a winning brand name?

A name that requires no introduction, no explanation and very little advertising to give it clout.

A great brand name is one of the most powerful forces in branding, marketing and advertising. It is at once the story about what makes you different from your competitors and the emotional tug that connects you with your audience—all in one or a few words.

A brand name that wields that much power can only come through a powerful positioning strategy—one that keys in on the kind of appeal that can touch the hearts and minds of your market in a way the world may have never seen. A great brand name can do this and own the talk of an industry. As you can see, there's quite bit in a brand name.

Brand names have so much riding on them—way too much to leave to already overworked brains of a few employees, tossing around ideas at lunch or entering a contest, as many companies like to approach naming. Those people simply don't have enough time to take into account the many things that must be considered when developing a brand name, such as: comprehension, memorability, ease of pronunciation, negative and positive associations, competitors, trademarks and domain name possibilities. These are just a few reasons smart companies that need a brand name turn to naming professionals, like Brand Identity Guru Inc., for guidance.

Communicating brand strategy is key to a great brand name.

Words project both meaning and feeling. Your brand name should communicate in a way that fits your overall brand strategy, whether that's straightforward functionality (PowerBook) or more emotional (Carnival Cruise lines and their "FunShips"). If it does, every time somebody mentions the name, it's an advertisement—one you didn't have to pay for.

Great brand names roll off the tongue.  

The sound of the spoken name, regardless of what it means, is a big consideration for brand names. An easy-to-understand pronunciation translates across languages and is more likely to be remembered.

Like the last puzzle piece, a good brand name fits right in.

Most established companies (not start-ups) have a set roster of corporate nomenclature for products, processes and services. Any good brand name is going to build on that "naming culture." Not to do so would squander an opportunity to bring even more value and strength to that "culture" and the overall brand.

A great brand name is the ambassador of your company.

It introduces and characterizes a company to its customers and to the public at large. It also helps differentiate a company's offerings from the competition's. As a registered trademark, a great brand name will make these kinds of impressions an official part of a company with actual value on a balance sheet.

How to pinpoint a good brand naming firm.

The most mission-critical aspect of naming a company, product or brand is not the name itself. It is the strategic positioning behind that name. Any professional brand naming company worth its salt knows this and practices it.

A good naming firm can tug heartstrings with their work.

A company name is, in essence, a promise—a testament to what a customer can expect from the product or service behind the name. Isn't the point of any promise to establish a connection of trust and loyalty from one entity to another? A great brand name can do just that.

Listening for quality and quality.

There are two kinds of qualities a great brand name must have. It must be both strategically sound and linguistically appealing in all the right ways. In other words, the market must gravitate to how the name said and what it says.  

Creativity is not just important…it's a necessity.

Creativity, unfortunately, gives way to practicality and feasibility. Consider this: over 260,000 trademark applications were filed in the United States in 2003 and over 98 percent of the dictionary is registered as a "dot com." What does that tell you? That all the obvious names are taken, and that it's going to take some real creative muscle to come up with something no one else has thought of.

A great naming firm should challenge a client.

What the target market thinks of a name is way more important than the opinion of any marketing, branding, advertising or naming guru (even us). That's why good naming firms utilize cutting-edge research methodologies that give the market the final say on a name choice. We've developed such research called the Brand-Aid?. The Brand-Aid? is dedicated to developing proper positioning in the marketplace.

No naming project is ever identical. There's no set formula to arrive at a winner. The only thing you can really control is the kind of work you do to come up with a name. If you do the right kind of work, you'll likely come up that one special word or phrase. Brand Identity Guru Inc. knows what "the right kind of work" is and has the skills necessary to follow through on that work. Hence, our motto, "Pump Up Your Brand."

Origin via brandidentityguru.com