What makes a great name and how you get there

There were 672,890 new companies registered in 2018-19 in the UK – the highest number of incorporations since 2009-10. In 2020, despite the uncertainty caused by the pandemic, still 468,371 companies were registered with Companies House.

These figures are for the UK alone. Globally, millions of companies, not to mention innovations from existing companies, are launched every year. Every one of these needs a name to be known by, and the clamour for website domain names makes an already complicated process trickier.

Not getting lost in the crowd

We’ve recently gone through a naming process for a new brand that is yet to launch. It was our trickiest to date because it’s a new brand in a very crowded category: tea. The process took longer wanted, but our collective perseverance paid off and we now have a great name (and a lovely logo too).

So, what should you be aiming for, and how do you go about it?

Don’t dive in – establish your jumping off point

Leaving aside the businesses with founder names (ahem), and those conceived by a founder’s moment of inspiration, you need a creative process to reach your answer.

Unsurprisingly, our approach to a verbal identity mirrors our approach to creating a visual identity. It’s worth pointing out, as it’s a process even experienced marketers go through much less often than the visual design process. Just like design, it can be tempting to dive straight into the “fun” part without a strategy in place.

Starting with your brand strategy means your names can be explored based on the overarching brand idea, personality, values or proposition that has been distilled.

The process is more focused, and it’s easier to make confident decisions.

Once the strategy is established, we come up with different territories for exploration, and whittle these down into longlists, and finally, a shortlist. At this point, top-line checks on Google, on a domain registrar and in relevant categories of the appropriate regional intellectual property office are essential.

We always present at least the shortlisted names with a simple rationale and example strapline, which helps for context and evaluation (this can be developed later).

For the tea project, consensus was challenging, so we conducted some straightforward consumer research to determine a winner, with some added context provided so names weren’t simply assessed on their ability to explain.

Testing can also be helpful for sense-checking in different markets and languages. Despite the widespread use of “Virgin” to describe non-alcoholic drinks (think “Virgin Mojito” or “Virgin Mary”) there was not universal comprehension of the no-alcohol meaning in some markets, when tested. However, simply pairing it with 0.0% removed any doubt, and kept the cheeky wink being glanced towards the Desperados Virgin drinker.

Seeking The Grail

If your logo is the most important part of your visual identity, then your name is the most important part of the verbal identity. We believe the best names are like the best logos: idea-driven, impactful, distinctive and engaging.

For brands solving very specific problems, like those in tech, you see a lot of names that explain the functional benefit by adapting a word with a modifier to make it “unique”. Something-isely, product-ify, and function-ly are typical approaches.

In a sense, these names are effective because of their immediacy, but there is a risk that the now ubiquitous approach makes them less memorable, cliché and limiting when the product grows beyond the original offer.

Our name for Dishmatic Brilliants does a great job of straddling the functional and attitudinal in a very simple way.

The idea behind the range was “Light up the Room,” evoking a positive friend, dishes so clean they sparkle, and the colourful range of washing up liquids Dishmatic created. We named the range “Brilliants” to celebrate the liquid colours and the results of an effective clean and paired it with the playful strapline “Your partners in grime”.

Names that are very ideas-led and less functional will allude to the bigger, emotional purpose behind a brand, and can therefore be engaging and enduring, if not necessarily as immediate. However, they can always be paired with a functional strapline to explain the products and services on offer if needed, especially after launch.

The Holy Grail, of course, is a name that does both.

When naming luxury pet care brand, Be:Loved, we created a simple encapsulation of that intangible connection between pets and pet-parents: “be loved” by your “beloved” pet. The strapline “Proper Pampering from Palm to Paw” positions the products as both effective and indulgent and emphasises the benefits to both the pets and those doing the pampering.

Uniquely, this “Be:” device flexes across packaging and throughout the brand world placing the different functional benefits of each product in the spotlight, while making the name more memorable. “Be:Safe”, “Be:Silky” feature on the nose and paw balm and coat oil, while “Clean, Calm, Vegan and Bugfree” speak to the different benefits of the shampoo bar range.

The final test is how distinctive and memorable the name is. It might be that a “normal” word is available (domain names aside), not used by a competitor in your category or market and helps you genuinely stand out. Sometimes simple techniques like modifying, combining words or slightly changing spelling can help with this too.

For Japeto, who’s range of garden tools was inspired by the ingenious designs of traditional Japanese garden tools, it was a case of just that, combining “Japan” and “Tools” in an invented word that sounded Japanese and even evoked the master craftsman, Gepetto.

For Virgin 0.0%, no one in beer was using that language, and “Be:Loved” stood out as sophisticated in a category full of pet puns.

As for Popp Studio, you can read about the thinking behind our name here. It was a gift!

Is your brand or innovation still anonymous?

Are you working on a new range or brand and stuck with the working title? Book a call with us to see how we can build your verbal identity, starting with its most important asset.