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

Posted on by igor

This is the most overlooked, counterintuitive truth in naming – the biggest hurdle to adopting a powerful name is the gulf between the way an internal naming committee will evaluate potential brand names and the way their target audience will receive them. Want To Create A Breakout Brand Name? Don’t Be A Literalist

Every viral/disruptive/breakout name is a provocation: Slack, Virgin, lululemon, Target, Yahoo, Caterpillar, Hotwire, Bluetooth, Google,  Oracle. To qualify as a provocation, a name must contain what most people would call “negative messages” for the goods and services the name represents.

Why? The most powerful words, those that we humans are drawn to, gather both positive and negative uses over time because we love to use them. “Mother” is associated with everything from the revered and nurturing propagator of life to mother fucker and everything in between; one tough mother, mothership, mother lode, mother earth, mother tongue, mother of invention, mother-of-pearl, motherboard, mother of 12 bastards, et al.

Fortunately, consumers process any of these negative messages positively. As long as one of the name’s usages maps to one of the positioning points of the brand, consumers never take its meaning literally, and the negative aspects of the name just give it greater depth.

A viral name must contain negative qualities.

Nothing is more powerful than taking a word with a strong, specific connotation, grabbing a slice of it, mapping that slice to a portion of your positioning, and therefore redefining it. This naming strategy is without question the most powerful one of all.

Potential names must be judged on how well they map to positioning, memorability, stopping power, emotional impact, connections to the collective consciousness, and distinction from competitors – the sum of which answers the most important naming question, “Is this name interesting?“.

Instead, on a naming committee, the literalist will negatively critique names based on dictionary definitions or a singular association, reliably in the form of an objection. Their claim will be that a word’s negative meaning or association(correlation) means that the value of the word as a name will also be negative(causation). The evidence they cite in their efforts to kill a name is irrefutable fact, yet irrelevant and counterproductive.  

Here are the types of objections a literalist will use to kill great name, attacking the very essence of what makes these names powerful – the tension created by positive and negative forces:

Slack

-In business, Slack means “characterized by a lack of work or activity; quiet.

-A Slacker is someone who works as little as possible. A terrible message for our target audience

– Slack means slow, sluggish, or indolent, not active or busy; dull; not brisk. Moving very slowly, as the tide, wind, or water.

lululemon

-We are an upscale brand for women, lululemon sounds like a character from a 3-year olds’ picture book: “lululemon and her best friends annabanana and sallystrawberry were climbing Gumdrop Hill, when suddenly from behind a rainbow the queen of the unicorns appeared…”

Virgin Air

-Says “we’re new at this!”.

-Public wants airlines to be experienced, safe, and professional.

-Investors won’t take us seriously-Religious people will be offended.

Hotwire

-It has one meaning, “to steal a car!”

-Crime is the last thing we need to be associated with.

Yahoo!

-Yahoo!! It’s Mountain Dew!

-Yoohoo! It’s a chocolate drink in a can!

-Nobody will take stock quotes and world news seriously from a bunch of “Yahoos”.

Oracle 

-Unscientific.

-Unreliable.

-Only foretold death and destruction.

-Only fools put their faith in an Oracle.

-Sounds like “orifice” – people will make fun of us.

Caterpillar

-Tiny, creepy-crawly bug

-Not macho enough – easy to squash

-Why not “bull” or “workhorse”?

-Destroys trees, crops, responsible for famine

Banana Republic

-Derogatory cultural slur

-You’ll be picketed by people from small, hot countries

Target

-Target of an investigation

-To have a Target on your back

-A Target gets shot; killed; slaughtered.

-The Target of a manhunt

This is a family show, so you’ll have to create your own misguided, literalist list of reasons that In-N-Out, Dick’s, BJ’s , Cornhole and LoveSac should fail as brand names.

No sane person cares about any of these literal negatives, because people process these ‘negative’ connotations either positively or not at all. As long as the name maps to one of the positioning points of the brand, consumers never take its meaning literally, and the negative aspects of the name just make it more memorable and engaging.

These literal, negative objections are not reasons to abandon a name, rather they have demonstrably positive effects on a target audience. They’re what make a name engaging, differentiating & unforgettable.  Consumers don’t process names literally, they process them emotionally. Getting your committee to acknowledge this difference and to interact as the public does with names, rather than the way the dictionary does, is essential.

If you encounter a literalist, keep your distance, maintain eye contact, and take the threat seriously. Do not run in any direction. Don’t bend over, crouch down or go fetal. Wave your arms in an alpha manner. Throw any toxic item you can find – Keurig pods, inspirational posters, focus group data, etc. If attacked, fight back. If this doesn’t work, your last chance for survival is to enlighten the literalist:

Slack

-Positioning: DISRUPTIVE, naming the problem we solve!

-Qualities:  Interesting! Confident, different, and focused on solving the target’s problem.

Hotwire

-Positioning: DISRUPTIVE, a travel hack, exciting, fun.

– Hotwiring a car is a hack, Hotwire.com is a travel hack. That’s why this name works.

-Qualities: Interesting! Exciting, different, memorable, viral.

Virgin

-Positioning: DISRUPTIVE, different, confident, exciting, alive, human, provocative, fun. The innovative name forces people to create a separate box in their head to put it in.

-Qualities: Interesting! Self-propelling, connects emotionally, deep well.

Oracle

-Positioning: DISRUPTIVE, different, confident, superhuman, evocative, powerful, forward-thinking.

-Qualities: Interesting! Self-propelling, connects emotionally, deep well.

The common wisdom that naming in large groups will discourage a literalist attack is nothing more than an urban legend. In fact, the larger the committee, the more likely an attack will be.

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

Posted on by igor

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 loves 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 this 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.

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 with 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.

However, 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.