My name is Ofer (which is a FAWN in
English and some of my friends are calling me Bamby) and I play the branding
and advertising instruments in POW THINK BAND.
The challenge of choosing a name
for a product or a service is one of the most complex challenges in
communication marketing, since it engages both personal tastes and opinions and
professional issues such as Memorability
and “Catchiness” to mention just two.
Naming is a
process and not a flash of inspiration. You find one you love in the evening and
you wake up the next day and you hate it. But then when somebody else loves it,
you start loving it again. Or the complete opposite.
There are no
good or bad names.
It all depends
on the purpose and cause that was specified clearly when that baby product or
service was born. You See, A name is just a vessel. It carries an
emotional cargo for the people that made it and for the people that will know
it when will make its debut.
There is right
or wrong names.
Here are some benchmarks for choosing the right name
1. Before choosing
a name one needs to look at the category they will compete and see what kind of
names dominate it. For example, ORANGE entered the mobile category which was
dominated by “Techy” brand names like TMOBILE, VODAFONE, and CELLCOM. Now,
ORANGE was built as an “Optimistic” and not a “Technological” brand, so it
needed a completely different and almost bizarre name to stand out and
communicate its brand values and identity. It is called a lighthouse identity
which is one of the building blocks of a challenger brand but this is a
different story you don’t have time to hear).
2. The right name
tells a story or at least invites you to investigate its meaning and connect it
with its emotional and rational cargo. Why did they call it TOY’R’US? NIKE??WHATSAPP?HELLS PIZZA? GEEK SQUAD?LUSH?IKEA?PINK
FLOYD?THE WHITE HOUSE?
3.
Looking for a right name can be performed in several disciplines of names:
A. Names that communicate the
product or service in a direct way: FACEBOOK
(the name is
derived from the common name colleges and universities give the book containing
the pictures of first-year students, so they can become more familiar
with each other.
B. Names that communicate an
category related idea that the product or company believes in : NIKE (in Greek mythology, Nike, was a
goddess who personified victory).
C. Names that communicate a
certain feeling or atmosphere: Häagen-Dazs
is an American ice cream brand that wanted to communicate a Scandinavian aroma
because of the coolness associated with northern Europe. By the way the
words are meaningless.
D. Names that communicate nothing
but were conceived for a personal factor: KODAK
(The founder George Eastman confessed to a liking for 'K', partly because
his mother's maiden name was Kilbourn but also because it seemed to him 'a
strong, incisive sort of letter.
4. It is like your name (write
your name here), It has so many meanings and reasoning for so many people
and every one of them tells its own story because of the reasons and context it
was conceived in.
I hope I helped or at least put you
in a different and more enlighten place for choosing the right name for your
project. On a personal note I can say that when a brand finally picks a name, a
king of magic happens and I will say no more.
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