An interview with Alexandra Watkins (Podcast) š
Arek Dvornechuck interviews Alexandra Watkins and we talk about how to create brand names that stick.
Listen here š or find it on your favorite podcasting platform.
Follow Alexandra on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and check out her Website.
Check out her book š āHello, My Name Is Awesome: How to Create Brand Names That Stickā
Also check out her online course š āHow To Create Super Sticky Brand Namesā and use the code āEBAQā to get $300 off š¤«
Table of Contents:
- Qualities of a good brand name
- Most common naming mistakes
- Domain name vs. brand name
- How to write a naming brief
- Brainstorming name ideas
- Conclusions
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1. Qualities of a good brand name
Arek Dvornechuck:
Whatās up branding experts? ā Arek here at Ebaqdesign. And welcome to On Branding Podcast ā the only podcast where i interview branding experts to give you actionable tips on everything branding and beyond. In this episode i interview Alexandra Watkins and we talk about how to create brand names. And Alexandra is the founder of Eat My Words, a nationally recognized naming film featured multiple times in Wall Street Journal, Inc Magazine ,Forbes, Entrepreneur and many more. And prior to launching her firm Eat My Words, Alexandra was an advertising copywriter working at leading West Coast ad agencies, including Ogilvy and Mather and Landor Associates. So her clients include big brands like Amazon, Xerox, Disney, Microsoft, Wrigley, Turner networks, Fujitsu just to name a few. And besides that Alexandra is also the author of the bestselling book āHello, My Name Is Awesome: How to Create Brand Names That Stickā And this is the book we are going to talk about today. So Alexandra is an expert when it comes to brand naming and thatās why i really wanted to have her on our podcast. Hello Alexandra, thank you so much for taking the time to join us on our podcast!
Alexandra Watkins:
My pleasure, thanks for having me.
Arek Dvornechuck:
āThank you. So basically in your book you show how anyone, even the most non-creative person, can come up with great brand names and and really have fun doing it, right? And you say that creating names is not a science yet there is a lot of naming firms that make it so sound like it is actually and they describe their work as āverbal identity engineeringā, ārigorous methodologiesā or ācomputational linguisticsā. And so in your book you demystify the naming process and you explain what actually makes a great name and what makes a bad one. And you give a ton of examples of small brands and also big brands that we all know and we can relate and so we can understand the concept. So in your book you also reveal your brainstorming process. And you give a bunch of tips and tricks on how to come up with awesome names. So i wanted to make this podcast actionable for our listeners and talk about your naming process, and some of your tools and techniques, okay? But before we talk about those exercises, those brainstorming tools, letās first define what makes a good versus bad brand name. So basically youāve developed this SMILE and Scratch test, right? so can you just speak to that a bit? What are the qualities of a good brand name?
Alexandra Watkins:
Sure, well the SMILE in SCRATCH is based on my philosophy that a name should make you smile instead of scratch your head. Smile is an acronym for the five qualities that make a name strong, and scratch is an acronym for when to scratch it off the list. So Smile stands for the āSā is for suggestive and that means that your name suggests or evokes something about your brand. The āMā stands for memorable and that means that your name makes an association with the familiar itās much more easy for itās much more easy for people to remember things that they already have an association with. The āIā stands for imagery and that means that your name when people hear it or see it it can evoke visuals in the mind, itās much more easy for people to remember images than it is for them to remember random words. The āLā in SMILE stands for legs and that means that your name has legs and it lends itself to a theme, so you can extend the brand. And finally the āEā in SMILE stands for emotional and your name needs to make an emotional connection to resonate with your audience, otherwise itās going to go right over their head.
Arek Dvornechuck:
āRight. Awesome! Soā¦ can you just give us some examples for each of those? So we can actually understand.
Alexandra Watkins:
Sure yeah so um suggestive so the name Amazon suggests large right like the Amazon river ā large, right? The memorable i like to useā¦ so that makes an association with the familiar. So thereās a bike lock named Kryptonite. Well, weāre all familiar with Kryptonite from the Superman comic ā so thatās familiar. It makes it easy to remember. Imagery rent the runway is a unicorn you hear rent the runway you can picture something in your head. Legs ā eat my words the name of my company has the theme of food. So for instance our blog is called The Kitchen Sink and we have packages like The Whole Enchilada or signature dish. And then āEā for emotional example ā I love to cite is an electronic mosquito zapper named The Executioner. When you hear that, it makes a strong emotional connection. Especially if youāre being attacked by a mosquito and you want to kill it. So a name.. if youāre shopping on Amazon at 2 a.m for a mosquito a bug zapper like I was ā a name like The Executioner makes a strong emotional connection. And names with strong emotional connections help with sales because people want something that they can relate to.
2. Most common naming mistakes
Alexandra Watkins:
So just so the flip side of Smile is Scratch. And Iāll give examples as I say these. The āSā in Scratch stands for āspelling challengeā. if your name looks like a typo scratch, it off the list people will have trouble finding you, theyāll butcher your email address, and web address. Spelling challenged names ā we see them all the time. Gosh where do i even start?
Arek Dvornechuck:
āRight. Haagen-Dazs.
Alexandra Watkins:
Yeah so thereās a like a this was an organic baby clothing company named Speesees which is the bad name in general spelled S-p-e-e-s-e-e-s. Copy cat, is the āCā in Scratch and that is when your name resembles competitors names. So it shows you know a lack of originalityā¦ you open yourself up to trademark infringement. An example there isā¦ we all know Quickbooks and thereās another accounting software called Freshbooks ā I mean itās just like a ripoff of Quickbooks, right? Lending tree, Lending clubs, so itās you knowā¦ they share words in the name that just smacks of being a copycatā¦
Arek Dvornechuck:
That are similar toā¦ just hijacking other peopleās ideas.
Alexandra Watkins:
Exactly! The āRā in Scratch stands for Restrictive. And thatās where your name limits your future growth, because youāre locked into it. Like Amazon, if Jeff Bezos had named it Book Barn they you neverā¦ whatās the latest thing you bought from Amazon, right? like I bought a lighting set. You know, somebody might have bought a lawnmower. Like but you wouldnāt be buying that from Book Barns.
Arek Dvornechuck:
That means yeah all kind of stuffā¦.
Alexandra Watkins:
Right right, so you donāt want your name to be restrictive. The āAā in Scratch stands for Annoying and thatās where your name seems forced or it frustrates customers. Thereās a company called Screencastify like thatās forced. Itās i think thereās five vowels in one word Screencastify it tries too hard, so thatās what I mean by annoying. Or you thereās a company called Xobni and itās spelled X-o-b-n-i and thatās Inbox spelled backwards. Like donāt annoy people, you know. The āTā and Scratch stands for Tame and you donāt want a name that feels flat descriptive or uninspired. So thatās, you know, people do that by making their name, you know, Network Solutions ā itās tame, right?! Or Docusign ā itās just boring, right?! It lacks inspiration. The second āCā in Scratch stands for the āCurse of knowledgeā and thatās where your name speaks only to insiders. This is often what happens when engineers are allowed to name things. They forget that other people donāt know what they know. So this is often when something is named in a word thatās a foreign language ā for instance that has the curse of knowledge. And then finally the āHā in SCRATCH stands for āHard to pronounceā and when your name is hard to pronounce, it confuses and distances customers. So think of a time youāve gone to a foreign restaurant and you were unable to confidently pronounce something on the menu. So maybe you pointed at it, maybe you butchered or bungled the spelling or maybe you just didnāt order it at all. You donāt want your brand name to be like that either you want it to be approachable like a welcome mat not like a do not enter sign. So hard to pronounce names, you know, again with the foreign languages. Or if your name can be pronounced multiple ways. Thatās a bad thing, you only want your brand to be known by one pronunciation, not two, right?! Thatās a SCRATCH!
Arek Dvornechuck:
Right, yeah it does make sense. So yeah, so weā¦ so your technique is this ā is like a checklist basically, right?!
Alexandra Watkins:
Yeah itās a 12 point name evaluation filter.
Arek Dvornechuck:
Yeah, so itās SMILE ā just for our listeners just to sum up ā So SMILE stands for five qualities of a good name. And so we were talking about: suggestive, memorable, image, legs and emotional.
And now weāve talked about SCRATCH which standsā¦ for just common naming mistakes or bad names. So weāve talked about names that areā¦ the spelling is challenged, or copycat names, restrictive, annoying, tame, course of knowledge and hard to pronounce.
3. Domain name vs. brand name
āArek Dvornechuck:
So since since our listeners now have some idea of what makes a good versus bad brand nameā¦ Now I know that ā just from my own experience ā that because a lot of people talk about domains when it comes to naming, right? And there is a lot of misconception when it comes to naming and then finding an available domain. So people often ask, you know, āCan a domain name be different than your legal business name?ā and āHow important is matching a companyās name to its domain name?ā ā So in the third chapter of your book you actually state quote: āMost people believe that the first thing they must do when naming a business is to go to a domain registrar and to make sure that domain is not takenā end quote. So basically the misconception is that people think that if their exact name isnāt available, then they have to dismiss that name entirely ā which is not true, right?! So can you speak to that?
Alexandra Watkins:
Yeah absolutely! Yeah, so many people make that mistake of starting by looking for a domain name when what they should be doing is finding a really good name for their brand. And thinking about the domain name ā nobody expects you to have an available domainā¦ to have an exact match domain name anymore. And so many companies that you know didnāt start out with this exact match domain name: Facebook was thefacebook.com, Tesla was teslamotors.com, Dropbox was getdropbox.com, Basecamp was basecamphq.com ā So donāt let yourself, donāt stop yourself because you canāt find an availableā¦ youāll never get a good brand name if you insist upon having an exact match domain name. Those just arenāt available anymore. So just add a modifier or do something clever. Like come up with a memorable phrase. Some of my favorites are ā thereās a company called Greenberg Smoked Turkeys and their domain name is gobblegobble.com Thereās a peanut butter company called Peanut Butter & Co and their domain name is ilovepeanutbutter.com So thereās aā¦ one of my clients is aā¦ they make their produce grower and they make a lot of prepackaged vegetables and their domain nameā¦. their company is called Man Packing and their domain is veggiesmaideasy.com So you can get creative. Donāt donāt get into that trap. And thatās why so many names are spelled in such horrible ways because people are so desperate to find an available domain name. That theyāll sacrifice a name thatās easy to spell and pronounce because they think they have to have the same word. And that the domain is super important. People will find you ā build a good brand!
āArek Dvornechuck:
Right! So this is really important to just point this out because itās a common misconception. So basically the solution to that is just to add modifiers, in the form of an extra word, right? Or using a creative phrase as you mentioned like with peanut butter ā ilovepeanutbutter.com Yeah, so what are some of the wrong likeā¦ wrong ways about going about domain name, for example misspellings.
Alexandra Watkins:
Thereās so many! I have this new online course called How To Create Super Sticky Brand Names and I have seven lessons in there on domain names and I have one called Silliness. And one of the things that people do is they use whatās called the CCTLD which stands for Country Code Top Level Domain where theyāll use the extension for a country like .ly which is Libya. And Iāve actually been to Libya and I tell me I trust me if you had to go to Libya to get one of those extensions you probably wouldnāt want to use it. Do not do this like, you know, then you have to constantlyā¦ like General Assembly is a place that offers online courses and their domain name is generalassem.ly so they always have to spell it. Any time you have to stop and spell your name for people ā your name, domain name, youāre youāre apologizing for it. Thatās exactly what youāre doing. And when you apologize for your name youāre devaluing your brand. So donāt use like dot me to spell something. And Iām sure a lot of your listeners remember Delicious the social bookmarking site that had all the dots in it they started that whole trend with the dot us. Well while no one was paying attention they quietly dropped the dots. And they wrote a blog post about it and said, you know, lookā¦ nobody ever got them in the right place. It was maddening ,right? It was so frustrating and thatās what happens ā youāre frustrating people. You do not want your name to be frustrating. You donāt want people to get that bounce back email because theyāre spelling Species like it should be spelled not you know S-p-e-e-s-e-e-s. So donāt make it hard for people, make it easy. Remember āthe welcome matā not āthe do not enter signā. So yeah, the CCTLD is huge mistake. Hyphens can trip people up, because again youāre gonna have to spell it out. If i tell you my website is eatmywords.com ā I donāt have to stop and spell it. I donāt have to say thereās a hyphen in it. I donāt have to say, you know, Eat my words or brand name, you know, brand name na dot m e. Likeā¦ because and peopleā¦ I know this because we renamed so many companies! And people that got it wrong, the first time and theyāll say every time I tell someone it was like dot m-e then they would say dot com, right? And itās likeā¦ no there is no dot com ā why isnāt there a dot com? And like you end up again explaining, apologizing and youāre devaluing your brand. And youāre wasting time! So donāt make it frustrating.
Arek Dvornechuck:
(Now we are going to take a quick break here but we will be right back. Listen my mission is to help people design iconic brands. So whether youāre a business leader who wants to be more intentional with branding and all of its aspects. Or you are a creative who wants to attract powerful clients and truly be able to help them with branding. Then you need to start with a discovery session and then develop a strategy that will inform all your creative work and everything you need to learn how to do that you can find in my online courses at ebackdesign.com/shop where I share with you my worksheets, case studies, video tutorials, and other additional resources to help you feel safe and strong about your process. And now letās get back to our conversation with Alexandra Watkins). Yes and this is something that you mentioned in your book also, right? You shouldnāt apologize for your name when you apologize for your name, thatās basically youāre missing the point, right? So yeah every time you have to spell for people, you are apologizing for your name. So just make make it easy for your customers, right?!
4. How to write a naming brief
Arek Dvornechuck:
So now, I just wanted to talk about your brainstorming exercises, because there is a lot quite a lot of them in your book. And I know you have an online course which isā¦ you just launched recently. And so you have a lot of brainstorming exercises that you use. But before we actually talk about those brainstorming exercises, what is really important ā and you emphasize on that in your book ā is to define some criteria. Just to be able to stay focused in that brainstorming phase, so ultimately we can make some meaningful decisions when selecting, you know, the winning candidates, right? So can we talk about the importance of writing a naming brief or creative brief. And what kind of information should we include there?
Alexandra Watkins:
Sure! Yeah, I would never start a naming project without a creative brief. And what the brief is, itās really the road map. Itās whereā¦ so you do stay focused like you said. And otherwise you donātā¦ if you donāt have a plan itās kind of like if you were driving somewhere ā you need a map to get there. Or I guess your GPS and otherwise youād just be going around aimlessly. So the brief keeps you on track, you know, you want to think about whatās the tone and personality of your brand. And this is always going to be a checklist that you can come back to and say āDoes the name that have come up with match what my goals are?ā. What isā¦ what style of names do you like? What is some brand experiences you want people to feel when they come in contact with your name? You know, if if youāre likeā¦ our brand is playful, unexpected and creative. So we need a name thatās that feels like that, which Eat My Words is. If we were called, you know, Strategic Name Development ā that doesnāt feel playful, creative or unexpected at all. So you want to have theseā¦ you want to define who your brand is, then work on your name and let the name fall out of that,
Arek Dvornechuck:
Right! So itās really important to have a creative brief, because otherwise youāre just driftingā¦ you want to be focused, right? You wonāt know which which candidate is a good candidate, so you just waste a lot of time. So some of those components like of a creative brief would be: your desired brand positioning, your target audience, some consumer insights, of course you need to analyze your competitors, right?! And desired brand experience, and as you mentioned brand personality, tone of voice and perhaps some words that you want to explore or words that you want to avoid, right?
Alexandra Watkins:
Yeah words to explore is really important! And yeah words to avoid would be likeā¦ you know, words that your competitors use and their names. Or words that might not appeal to your target audience. So itās really important that you spend a lot of time on the brief. And that all of the decision makers weigh in. So that way you all have the same strategy. And when you do come up with names, you will have something to measure them against.
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