An $8 billion healthcare spinoff gets a caustic new name:

The brand naming brief must have called for a cold, distant, uncaring, inhuman, faceless megacorp, dark void vibe. A bold choice for a healthcare company.

3M explains the meaningless name because otherwise, you’d only have its toxic personality to go on: “The name of the company is a combination of “solving” and “momentum,” according to Bryan Hanson, chief executive officer of 3M Health Care Business Group.”

“Solving” and “momentum” are concepts so generic that any company, from Ford to Zoom, would sign off on them – they aren’t specific to the new company. They are no more exciting or distinctive than “growth” + “solution” = Grolution, or “triumph” + “succeed” = Triceed. Or “solvent” + “um” = Solventum.

Landor used to be the go-to agency for lifeless constructions like this, having named Ilimity, Enactus, Magotan, and Centravis, but another agency has filched their manky crown. When a naming or branding agency sells a client on a name by smushing together generic terms that create a negative asset, that process is called The Happy Idiot.

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:

Beware The Happy Idiot

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

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

The Brand Naming Process

The Igor Brand Naming Guide

Performing a Competitive Name Analysis is Essential 

Brand Naming Tools

125 Articles About Naming Products & Companies

75 Brand Naming Case Studies

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

How many of those billions result 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 had the best-in-class name approval process of any large company we’ve worked with in over 20 years: there was a single decision maker, and we worked directly with her. And they had the intelligence and fortitude to skip the market testing of names, which is the time-honored practice of eliminating the best names and elevating the vanilla, just so no one has to take responsibility for making a decision.

CNBC: “Arm climbs 17% in Nasdaq debut after pricing IPO at $51 a share. At the open, Arm was valued at almost $60 billion. The company, trading under ticker symbol “ARM,” sold around 95.5 million shares. SoftBank, which took the company private in 2016, controls around 90% of shares outstanding.”

Arm Case Studies.