Branding Strategy Insider

When Your Brand Name Is Damaged

The Tea Party Bookshop in Salem, Oregon, has a generous selection of titles on personal growth and spirituality. There’s a poetry reading on the third Thursday of every month. And every once in a while, there’s a “pagan meet-up,” when folks are invited to enjoy a nice evening chatting with fellow pagans. (Well, this is Oregon.)

People who are angry about new Federal healthcare and happy about Sarah Palin wouldn’t necessarily shop there for books. But as the Tea Party political movement gained attention, they began calling and stopping by to ask what time the next anti-government rally would start.

The store’s owner reported disappointment, some interesting discussions, and mostly – confusion. And confusion, whether your name identifies a bookstore or a bank or a boat-builder, is the enemy of good communication.

Something had to be done. The store’s original name, based on the “independent, anti-corporate, more forward-thinking aspects” of the Boston Tea Party, had to go.

Brand Naming: The Advantage Of Two

The one-day flap over the "Chevy" name should never have happened.

General Motors made a mistake by telling its employees to never use the "Chevy" name again and to refer to the brand only as "Chevrolet."

A nickname is not a bad thing. It's a good thing. People who use a brand's nickname feel closer to the product than those who don't. As a matter of fact, nicknames are one of the most under-utilized aspects of marketing. If at all possible, every company and every brand should have a formal name as well as a nickname. Two names are better than one.

Ad Age versus Advertising Age?
Should Advertising Age change its name to Ad Age just because everybody in the industry uses the nickname? I think not. That would destroy some of the connections industry people feel toward the publication.

Formal names and nicknames are somewhat like "vous" and "tu" in the French language. When meeting someone for the first time, it's common in France to use "vous." After a friendship or working relationship is formed, it would be common for one party to suggest using "tu." When someone uses "Ad Age" instead of "Advertising Age," you know that person is in the ad business or is familiar with it.

Nicknames serve a communication function. They indicate an emotional connection with the brand. Or in the case of a formal name, the lack of one.

The Overlooked Power of Category Names

High-fructose corn syrup is getting a bad name. Hunt's ketchup is the latest product to replace corn syrup with old-fashioned sugar.

Gatorade, Wheat Thins, Ocean Spray cranberry juice and all the baked goods at Starbucks are now made with regular sugar. In New York State, a bill to ban the sale of food containing high-fructose corn syrup was introduced this year.

One analyst estimates that U.S sales of high-fructose corn syrup were down 9% in 2009 compared with 2007. A further fall is expected this year.

This decline has taken place in spite of a two-year $30 million "Sweet Surprise" advertising campaign sponsored by the Corn Refiners Association. The campaign highlights what the association says are vague and unsubstantiated opinions.

Most experts agree. "Leading scientists," reported The New York Times, "say that the product, made when various chemicals convert corn starch into syrup, is not any worse than sugar. Both sweeteners are made up of roughly equal amounts of glucose and fructose, they say."

Ironically, what happens in a modern corn-refining plant is exactly what happens in your mouth, where an enzyme breaks up starch into sucrose, glucose and fructose.

Brand Naming: Consider the First Letter of the Name

Should you start your new name with an S or a C? Why not a J or a K?

In other words, does the first letter of your product, service or company name really matter? – aside from the gambit of leading a directory category with an “AAA Plumbing”-style moniker.

The following table is not purely scientific, but it shows how letters which begin “ordinary” words differ in frequency from those beginning brand names and trade names.

The first column comes from a page count of letters in a dictionary that does not include proper names.
The second column shows the frequency in two long lists of brand names.
The third shows the frequency of trade names on the New York Stock Exchange.

Some initial-letter words are so close in frequency, they’re clustered.

Trademark and Brand Naming Q & A

Choosing a new trademark is a thorny task for many companies. So we asked Tara Benson, Esq., a seasoned intellectual property attorney, for her thoughts on how to avoid the most common pitfalls. Benson is a senior member of the trademark practice group at Giordano, Halleran & Ciesla, P.C. During her career, she has handled trademark work for such clients as Tazo Teas and Amazon.com; and also served as in-house counsel for Library Video Company/Schlessinger Media, the leading distributor and producer of educational media.

Q: Tara, it often seems that tension between marketing and legal departments is the start of trademark troubles. Do you agree?

Absolutely. In my experience, marketing departments often gravitate towards a mark which describes the product or service. Descriptive marks ensure that the customer can easily identify the product. Unfortunately, descriptive marks will not likely win the right to be registered and probably don’t do much to distinguish your product in the marketplace.

Q: So does that mean you should avoid descriptive marks at every turn?

In short, yes, it is best to avoid them whenever possible. The strongest marks (and those that are able to achieve trademark protection) are fanciful, arbitrary or suggestive marks. A fanciful mark is a word, which has no meaning aside from its use as a trademark, such as Kodak or Exxon, while arbitrary marks are existing words with meanings that are generally unrelated to the product with which they are used, such as Apple for computers. Finally, suggestive marks are those which suggest the identity of a product, but do not merely describe the product (e.g. Coppertone for suntan lotion). It is important that a marketing department be aware of these necessary qualities while brainstorming names for new products or services.

Q: Do clients become emotionally attached to names they are considering?

Yes, often companies will create an internal development name for a product or service. Sometimes people will become so attached to this development name that they are not willing to part with it once the product or service is ready to be launched. Falling in love with an internal development name prior to completing a full trademark search and legal review is one of the most common problems which companies encounter. I always stress the importance of completing a trademark review on a mark before company employees become too attached to a name.

Brand Naming Origins: Academy Awards 'Oscar'

It’s Academy Award season again, and  movie buffs everywhere await the results of the annual competition.

So how did Hollywood's beloved Oscar, the 8-pound gold statuette get its name?

Most awards nicknames have obvious sources. For instance, 

• The Tony Awards on Broadway are nicknamed in honor of actress/director Antoinette Perry, who died in 1946. The Tony Awards began the next year.

• The Grammy Awards, given by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, are a diminutive of "gramophone,” coined way back in 1887 to describe a device to record and reproduce sound. (Gramophone was a trademark based on the inversion of “phonogram.”) AsVariety tells the story, there was discussion in 1958 of calling the award the “Eddy,” to honor Thomas Edison. But the name “Grammy” prevailed, backed by Academy governors such as Elmer Bernstein and Stan Freberg.

• Television’s Emmy Awards get their moniker from a pioneer TV engineer and the third president of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. He suggested “Immy,” a term commonly used around 1950 for the early image orthicon camera. The name stuck and was later modified to Emmy, which was considered more appropriate for a female symbol.

But the origin of Oscar, as the award of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is commonly known, is shrouded in showbiz lore. Consider:

How Color And Flavor Names Affect Choice

Is Moody Blue a better name for a flavor than Glacier Freeze? How will consumers react to a color named Razzmatazz instead of Bright Orange? And what’s wrong with good old Fire Engine Red? 

Two marketing professors have been studying these shades of meaning and publishing provocative papers on color-coding and what it does to buyers’ expectations. So we went to Barbara E. Kahn (at Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania) and Elizabeth G. Miller (at Boston College) for some answers. 

Q: Is there anything wrong with good old “Fire Engine Red” to identify a nail polish? 

We find in our research that consumers tend to react positively to ambiguous names and specific, unexpected names. If Fire Engine Red is surprising to consumers, then they will react more positively to it. If it’s not, then it’s similar to just calling it “red.” 

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this description, but with the multitude of choices that a consumer faces every day, marketers are increasingly looking for ways to stand out and coming out with an unusual name is one way. 

Q: You have commented that it’s astonishing when Crayola comes out with names that don’t describe the color of crayons. Why so? 

Brand Naming Contest Helps Boeing Soar

 

We’ve reported before on the use of contests in naming. The maker of Crayola products, for instance, urged crayon enthusiasts to help rename an old color, and name suggestions poured in. 

For the first time in its history, Boeing encouraged people around the world to name its newest airplane. In the process, the firm reaped a public relations windfall. 

After tallying 500,000 votes in more than 160 countries, Boeing announced the winner at the Paris Air Show in June 2003: “Dreamliner” will be the name of the Boeing 7E7 aircraft. 

The three other choices were eLiner, Global Cruiser and Stratoclimber. Consultants came up with a hundred potential names, and Boeing settled on those four. Through a marketing alliance with AOL Time Warner, people placed votes at a website devoted to the new jetliner. 

The unusual contest was designed to generate some much-needed buzz for the new 250-seat plane – something that had been lacking since Boeing shelved plans for a fast, sleek and sexy sonic-cruiser in favor of the more conventional but super-fuel-efficient 7E7. 

Rallying Employees Around A New Corporate Name

 

So you're changing your company name. The old Stafko Products Corporation is now Simplex Corporation. You've thought about Wall Street, your customers, your suppliers. 

What about the staff? Here are six steps to get employees on board: 

1. Get them in the tent early. Tell staff before customers and Wall Street get the word. Email them when the word is official and direct them to the new, improved corporate Website. Your employees are the keepers of the new flame, and their support will help you make the transition quickly. 

2. The faddish term is "buy-in." That implies holding briefings to announce the new name. Distributing advertising PDFs of the announcement for the new name and logo. Supplying coffee mugs and Lucite cubes and all that jazz so that they are actually looking at the new name all the time. (Don't underestimate the value of making the new name tangible.) 

3. Say it loud and say it proud. Herald the new name categorically and unequivocally. If you flinch in your pronouncements, you give the troops the same "out" to cling to the old name. The announcements should come from the top. The rationale should be crisp and clear and, above all, enthusiastic. 

Brand Naming: Context Counts

“Naming a company Google or Squidoo or Blueturnip in the dot-com world isn’t weird. It’s the equivalent of naming your kid Michael.” 

That funny (and perceptive) quote comes from Small Is the New Big, a (2006) book from author and entrepreneur Seth Godin. 

The larger issue here is: Context counts. 

• For instance, in the “As Seen on TV” category of products, most of the names are descriptive and straightforward, and rightly so. Here is a neighborhood where the best names are quick into the mind, and easy to understand. Examples: Pasta Express, Swivel Sweeper, Stick-Up Bulb, Auto Cool, Just-a-Trim, LumaTweeze. In a twinkling, these names tell the consumer who you are, and what you do.

• Is Celsia the correct name for a high-tech company that does cooling solutions? Absolutely, since the technologists making the purchase decisions know the name honors a Swedish astronomer named Anders Celsius, whose adopted name identifies the metric system used by most countries.

• Is Zany Brainy the right name for an educational toy store in the mall? You betcha. Just ask the parents if they’d like their kids to have fun while they learn.

• Is Premio (the Italian word for “prize” or “reward”) a good name for the Italian sausage with real Italian taste? Just ask any supermarket shopper who’s looking for the “real thing” – the most authentic Italian brand. Premio stands out amid a cluster of general-purpose, heartland American brand names for sausage, like "Johnsonville" or "Jimmy Dean.".

When it comes to coining a new name, context matters.

Sponsored By: The Brand Positioning Workshop