A Perfect Name

Why? Because it does the most important thing a brand name can do: It’s interesting. Which means it’s unforgettable—no money wasted trying to get anyone to remember the name or the product. It’s differentiating, has personality, and is engaging.

“If you visit an Irish pub this St. Patrick’s Day, chances are good it has one of these names”

Via The Washington Post: “The majority of U.S. Irish pubs include a first or last name — Murphy’s Pub, Kelly’s Tavern or Molly’s Pub & Carryout, for example. The remaining 43 percent of pubs that lacked a first or last name are a bit of an amalgamation. References include:

• Irish landmarks (Blarney Stone Pub, The Killarney, Stephen’s Green)
• Irish words or objects (The Harp Irish Pub, 3 Kilts Tavern, Paddy Wagon Irish Pub)
• Stereotypical names (Shenanigans Pub, The Shamrock, The Crazy Leprechaun Bar & Grill)

A smaller minority also referenced:

• Gaelic words (Fadó, An Seanachi Irish Pub)
• Irish history and folklore (Boudicca’s Celtic Pub, Napper Tandy’s)

But people’s names are far and away the defining characteristic of the U.S. Irish pub name, with two of the most popular — Murphy and Paddy, short for Patrick — topping the list.

Read the rest of The Washington Post article.

Choosing a brand name? Do an A.S.S. count.

ASSOCIATIONS + SLOGANS SCORE

Let’s say you’ve got two names under consideration for your new computer company, Apple and Strawberry. Both names meet your baseline brand positioning criteria:

Simple, warm, human, approachable, organic, disruptive.

Half your team champions Apple and the other half love the name Strawberry. It’s pointed out that the names couldn’t be more similar – they are both red fruits. So why not flip a coin and move on?  The Chief Obfuscation Officer calls for a month of testing, reliably in the unreliable form of crowdsourcing or focus groups.

At which point you become the hero by jumping up and shouting, “I demand an A.S.S. test!”

A test that takes minutes to complete.

When leading name contenders are locked in a battle, tallying up the number of associations each have in our collective consciousness – in stories, legends, idioms, songs, culture, history, mythology, etc, tells you how emotionally connected people are to them. The more the better.

And it reveals what each brings to the table for marketing, branding and advertising campaigns.

Apple

• • Garden of Eden (apple w/ bite logo)

• • Issac Newton (product name)

• • William Tell

• • Snow White

  • The Tree of Life

• • McIntosh (product names McIntosh, eMac, iMac, Power Mac, MacBook, Mac Mini)

• • One smart apple

• • A bad apple

• • Easy as apple pie

• • An apple a day

• • Apple of my eye

• • Apple polisher

• • Big Apple

• • Apples and oranges

• • How ’bout them apples?

• • Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree

• Upset the applecart

 Strawberry

• Strawberry Fields

• Strawberry shortcake

• Strawberry blonde

Sometimes the positioning of the name your looking for is simply a single big idea – an iconic, definitive name that captures the imagination.

This was the case for a B2B software startup we named, so the first and winning tactic was to find a name that had the most cultural connections that were really big ideas. The clear winner was Seven:

 Seven

• Seven wonders of the world.

• Seven musical notes.

• Seven seas.

• Seven days a week.

• Seven continents.

• Seven deadly sins.

• Seven virtues.

• Seven colors of the rainbow.

• Seven chakras.

• Seven years of bad luck.

• Seven visible planets.

• Seven heavens.

• Seven dwarfs.

• Seven samurai.

• On the seventh day god rested.

• Lucky number seven.

Of course, there are many more, but you get the idea. Before we presented Seven to our client, we needed to determine if Seven could possibly be trademarked around the world, given the 700,000+ trademarked software names globally. We came up with a strategy, and Seven is trademarked worldwide. The ability to legally finesse a name like Seven is critical because naming is not simply about finding the best name for the job, it’s about finding the best name for the job that you can legally use.

Apple vs. Strawberry isn’t a fair fight. But it’s not always so lopsided. If the A.S. portion of the test doesn’t produce a winner, move on to Slogans. Put two names side by side and see which inspires the most taglines that play off the name.

Of course none of the taglines anyone can remember actually play off the company name, they’re too expected and make the name one-dimensional. Imagine, “Virgin, A Brand New Experience” or “Apple, Easy as Pie”.  Deadly.

But the exercise does reveal the power, connectivity, and relevance of an unexpected name.

In this example, let’s say we’re naming a creative agency and a leading name contender is:

 Igor

• Igor. Bringing Your Vision To Life.

• Igor. Get Over The Hump.

• Igor. A Few Spare Parts and a Good Storm.

• Igor. Throw The Switch.

• Igor. A Moveable Beast.

• Igor. Own Your Shadow.

• Igor. No Job Too Horrifying.

• Igor. The Other White Meat.

• Igor. Never Say Die.

• Igor. A Good Brain Is Hard To Find.

• Igor. Alive!

• Igor. Better Living Through Science.

• Igor. Building The Perfect Beast.

BOTTOMLINE: The number of ASSOCIATIONS or SLOGANS that potential metaphorical brand names generate tells you how emotionally connective each name is and how much branding, marketing & advertising ammunition they contain.

More on the existential hell of a naming agency naming itself.

Need A Brand Name? Pick Igor’s Brains

Are your brand name brainstorming attempts long on storm and short on brains? Igor has plenty of brains in stock, ready to help you name whatever needs naming.  Most have very low mileage, are hardly ever driven during the week, and are used only sparingly on weekends to scan refrigerator contents and such. Jump in and pick our brains!  

Tips for picking a brain:

•  Do not pick if the skin is too green–it’s not ripe yet.
• The brain should be viscous and phlegmatic yet hold up to a good thumping. Not too firm, not too soft.
• The end twisted from the brain stem should be pliable when you poke your thumb through the outer membrane. If you can’t break the membrane with your fingernail, the brain was picked prematurely.
• Smell is the most reliable indicator of freshness.
• Have fun with it, but keep it platonic.

Our collection of brains can be picked through right here, at the Igor Brain Depository:

The Brand Naming Process

125 Articles About Naming Products & Companies

Want To Create A Viral Brand Name? Don’t Be A Literalist

Choosing a new brand name:  Do an A.S.S. count

Beware The Happy Idiot

The Igor Brand Naming Guide

Performing a Competitive Name Analysis is Essential 

Brand Naming Tools

75 Brand Naming Case Studies

“Vanillacide”: How Radical Concepts Are Destroyed By Too Much Consultation

Beware The Happy Idiot

 The Happy Idiot, as it’s known in professional naming circles, is a process used by naming agencies who view your naming project as a consensus-building exercise only, and not a quest for a powerful name that consensus is then built around.

It’s called The Happy Idiot because an agency deliberately delivers a name that’s a liability to a smiling client who’s happy with the result. It was designed to be the fastest, smoothest route to client buy-in on a name, with the least amount of effort by the agency.

When a Happy Idiot practitioner presents a  name candidate that isn’t immediately met with applause by every member of a client team, they’ll smooth down the edges until there is nothing interesting or effective left in the names they’re presenting. Going forward they’ll only present names of the vanilla variety, because getting buy-in on breakout brand names requires commitment and hard work. It requires the ability to give a client the confidence to make the most powerful choice.

The first step to protecting yourself is learning to spot The Happy Idiot.

To illustrate each, we’ll use actual names and case studies created by a single naming agency.

The Happy Idiot 

In this classic version the agency invents a word with no resemblance to any existing word. Because the name neither means nor implies anything, there are no objections from the client. It’s been sanitized for their protection. But in order to sell the name, the agency needs to convince the client that the invented word has positive, relevant meaning. The agency breaks the name down into morphemes (a morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of a language) and assigns positive meaning to each. They have someone with a master’s degree in linguistics from Berkeley or Stanford certify the meanings – in languages neither the client nor their target audience speaks – to give it weight and to assure the client that this meaningless construction is not only full of meaning, it’s perfect for them.

When an agency rolls out morphemic rationale, you’re being played:

 Mirvie

“Mirvie is a rich coining that draws on several Romance languages: Mira means “objective” in Italian, “purpose” or “look!” in Spanish, and the feminine form of “wonderful” in Latin. Vie is “life” in French and “means” or “paths” in Italian. Mirvie suggests the wonder of pregnancy, a means to your objective, and lifesaving, targeted insights”

Is it possible the naming agency believes, “Mirvie suggests the wonder of pregnancy, a means to your objective, and lifesaving, targeted insights”? Depends on what they’re smoking. What matters is the client believes it. Nobody objects, a positive meaning was established by an expert no one feels qualified to argue with, job done! The client is happy.

When agencies rely heavily on this strategy, it’s referred to as morpheme addiction.

Invented words have their place in naming, but their rationale cannot be morphemic pretzel logic based on multiple languages foreign to the audience. An invented name has to work on its own, without explanation, in the context of the company or product it represents. Neoverse is a solid example. The only exceptions are names of pharmaceuticals and chemicals, where global regulations prohibit rational names.

The Happy Idiot with a Passport

Same basics as the original, but this variation uses real words from foreign languages that neither the client nor the client’s target audience speaks. The Happy Idiot with a Passport produces names the client can’t object to because they don’t mean anything to the client. Foreign language names function as invented names, but the positive meanings the agency claims the name has are based on their meaning in an obscure language.

When an agency tries to sell you on a meaning in a language unfamiliar to your customers, you’re being played:

Ikena

“Ikena, a Hawaiian word meaning “vista, perspective, knowledge.” The name also recalls “I ken” (an older English word for “know”) and “I can” 

The Happy Idiot and Happy Idiot with a Passport both reveal an essential naming truth: Having a meaning doesn’t make a name meaningful. Ikena has a meaning but is meaningless unless you speak Hawaiian. Mirvie’s morphemes may have meaning, but Mirvie is meaningless to everyone. Which is why in our opinion, both naming approaches are scams.  They’re nothing more than a sales pitch to a client to end a project.

Foreign language names can make reasonable brand names, but they have to work based on their look, sound and personality. Their “meaning” is irrelevant to anyone who doesn’t speak the language.

The Happy Idiot with a Wallflower

The Wallflower version employs the one thousand most common words used by brand names, words like Active, Arc, Atlas, Blue, Bridge, Care, Clear, Complete, Core, Curve, Edge, Engage, Ever, Expert, Flex, Flow, Fly, Force, Front, Fusion, Future, Gain, Go, Green, Hill, Hub, Key, Lead, Light, Line, Next, Now, On, One, Path, Plus, Point, Power, Pro, Pulse, River, Sense, Scape, Shift, Sky, Smart, Span, Splash, Star, Stream, Sun, Up, Via, Vista, Wave, Wise and Zip. A single word Wallflower is rarely presented. They are overwhelmingly “Compound Wallflowers,” as a combination of two excruciatingly common words is much easier to trademark than one. These words are so meek they don’t draw any objection from the client, and each contains a slight, one-dimensional positive attribute. And are so generic that their effect on an audience is that of white noise. They’re Wallflowers, forgotten in a heartbeat.

When an agency takes the path of least resistance by presenting pairings of white noise words, you’re being sold a Wallflower.

Combining these wallflower words has gifted six different clients of this one agency with these six names:

Bridgescape

Bridgespan

Everbridge

Flybridge

Gainbridge

PSI Bridge

Takeaways

–  When an agency rolls out morphemic rationale, you’re being played.

– When an agency tries to sell you on a meaning in a language unfamiliar to your customers, you’re being played.

–  When an agency takes the path of least resistance by presenting pairings of white noise words, you’re being sold a Wallflower.

Preventing a H.I. Jacking

If you’re looking for a branding or naming agency to create a brand name, have a quick look at their naming portfolio. Agencies who’ve somehow found a way to ethically rationalize The Happy Idiot don’t just dabble, they’re all in. The vast majority of their portfolio will be chockfull of Compound Wallflowers, Invented Words, and Foreign Language names.

They’re all mindless brand zombies, neither interesting, differentiating nor memorable, and create a marketing money pit that you may never climb out of. If you can spot a Happy Idiot, avoiding the trap is straightforward.

 

Arm’s stock is up 60% today. Igor named their products.

The gain raises Arm’s valuation to $123 billion. How many of those billions resulted from Igor naming their four latest and greatest products? It’s hard to say with certainty, but what in life is certain? What’s unquestionable is that Arm trusts Igor as their naming agency of record.

CNBC: “Shares of chip designer Arm soared more than 60% on Thursday after the chip design company reported better-than-expected earnings and issued a strong profit forecast for the current quarter. The stock surge added about $46.8 billion to Arm’s market cap, with more than $42 billion of that accruing to SoftBank, which owns 90% of the company.”

Arm Case Studies.

Morgan Freeman on the importance of a brand name