Six Steps for Creating a Successful Brand Name

Naming a brand may be one of the most complex things you ever do. What you decide can directly impact how well a market responds to a specific product or service and can greatly lead to either the success or failure of a brand! So it’s extremely important to understand what is behind naming a successful brand name.

With the market filling up with competing brands there is a growing need to select one that distinguishes, differentiates, brings value back to your parent brand and is absolutely unique in the market. An entire business category of “Naming” has grown up around this process and illustrates just how important this truly is. After naming companies, divisions, services and products for 25 years, I can say that there is both art and science behind a successful brand naming.

Brand Naming
How the consumer sees and interacts with your brand often starts with its name. It’s the one ingredient that will remain constant throughout a brand’s life cycle. While designing a brand name you will need to build strong identification with the true purpose of the brand promise and combine it with creativity to build a lasting brand name. The brand-building process often leads us to re-name a company or a brand name, including the trademarks that set a company’s signature products and services apart. The distinguishing factor often starts with the product’s unique name.

If you have ever given something a name, you already know how difficult the process can be, particularly if you don’t have a clear plan to achieve your goal. It’s a lot like two people trying to wallpaper a small bathroom without any rules or enough space.

So where do you start? There are six main steps that we recommend to guide your brand naming process.

Step #1: Strategic Criteria
Of all the steps, this first one is probably the most critical because if you start in the wrong direction you will never get there! To decide what type of brand name you need, start by looking at what your big product idea is all about. Is it a consumer consumable? A technical product? A general information service for a niche market? Once you determine what the product is going to do for its customers, write out what the strategy will be in formulating its name. Here’s the Strategic Criteria that we used when choosing MarketCues as our corporate name: