Percentage-wise: Meditating on the 10% Happier Brand
Dan Harris would like a minute of your time. In fact, he would like any amount of time you would be willing to dedicate to the age-old contemplative practice of mindfulness meditation. If you’re using his 10% Happier app, even better.
The ABC news anchor turned meditation evangelist has been on a crusade to convince the world of the benefits of meditation since a panic attack strangled him live on air in 2004. He has credited mindfulness meditation with helping him kick a drug habit developed to cope as a war journalist, fight his anxiety about elevators, and become “less of an asshole.” And the science is there to support his claims.
Meditation has been shown to reduce stress and anxiety, promote emotional health, and reduce age-related memory loss. The list is long and supported by well-documented and reputable research by scientists like Richard Davidson and Daniel Goleman. But I’m not here to talk about that. I’m here to be a Dan Harris fanboy and geek out on the 10% Happier brand. And as a professional namer, I’ll be focusing on the names in the 10% Happier app.
Let’s begin with the parent brand which also acts as the app name — 10% Happier. I like it. It’s modest and friendly. The name isn’t so grandiose that you think the end result will be transcendental enlightenment. You kinda assume that you’ll walk away feeling, well, slightly better than you did before. It’s pragmatic in an over-promising world.
There are a few downsides to a name like this. The first being how the hell do you spell the damn thing: is it 10% Happier, 10 Percent Happier, or Ten Percent Happier? The website says one thing while Instagram says another. I don’t think this is a big deal when having a conversation but might cause confusion when searching the app store or for SEO purposes.
The name is also finite in its meaning — can I ever be 11% happier? That seems better, right? Harris has had his share of prodding about the name. You can listen to the Robert Thurman 10% Happier podcast episode to hear it in real time. Finally, the modesty can be a boundary for those who do want to elevate their way towards enlightenment or, possibly, those who don’t share Harris’s self-deprecating sense of humor. All that said, he could have done much worse. A lot of companies do.
Now let’s take a look inside the app.
The 10% Happier homepage is an overview of sorts, highlighting current features. You will find Event Spotlight, Daily Dose, Weekly Wisdom, Right Now, Podcast, and Collections. Many of these names are what we call “branded descriptive” naming. They educate and direct. They tell the user where to go in the app but with a wink. Daily Dose could have easily been Daily Meditation. Right Now, which offers meditations for that specific time of day, might have been Hourly Meditations. Tasked with naming these features, I don’t think we would have done much differently.
A navigation bar is located at the bottom of the home screen, and here is the meat and potatoes of the app. You’ll find Courses, Singles, and Sleep. Simple and descriptive naming, as it should be at this point in the customer journey. But how do the meditation names fare within each?
Courses are groupings of meditations concerning a certain theme like anxiety or focus or mindful eating. The names of these meditations can be a bit of a grab bag. I’d normally wag a finger at this but the use of evocative and descriptive names are used strategically.
Courses for beginners are named clearly and simply, guiding the new user to the appropriate video or meditation for their skill level. More advanced courses have more advanced names. Wandering Retreat or 10% Nicer are for those who have moved beyond the basic techniques and want to explore loving kindness meditation or open awareness meditation. (An interesting aside is that Courses were once called Packages which the company renamed, I assume because it implies forking over money and not education. But that’s a namer’s guess.) Next up — Singles.
The Singles category is broken down into four sections: For You, Featured, Go Unguided, Browse All. These descriptive names are appropriate for the section but I want to aim our attention at the names that fall under these broader categories.
You could scroll for days trying to select the right Single meditation. It’s always good to have options but this becomes a problem when it comes to naming. The brain wants to identify some cohesion in the naming ecosystem when there are so many choices. But like natural ecosystems, naming ecosystems fluctuate, contract, and expand as you add and subtract.
It’s how you end up with names like Stress living next to Happiness Is A Skill. And even though these names migrate across an evocative-to-descriptive spectrum, they are relatable in a way — they all speak the same language.
Stress could have been titled Taming the Amigdala, bewildering those without a neuroscience degree. And Happiness Is A Skill could have easily been called Metta (Pali for positive energy and kindness toward others), alienating a portion of the audience who doesn’t live for this stuff.
At last, Sleep.
The 10% Happier Sleep offerings are typically soothing and guided meditations to help lull you to sleep or help you rest soundly through the night.
In 2020 8.4% of adults took sleep medication within a 30-day period (either every day or most days), acting as evidence that some of us are getting shitty sleep. So why not give meditation a try?
Admittedly, the Sleep portion of the app is the section I use the least and the names I take issue with the most. I struggle to find the difference between Relax Into Sleep, Melt Into Sleep, Soothe Anxiety to Sleep, and Deeply Relaxing the Body & Mind.
Each meditation is attempting to convey an element of calm and peace but herein lies the problem with naming a feeling — emotions are complex and subjective. What melts you, might not melt me. The better choice would have been to use descriptive naming, allowing the audience to understand the specific differences of each meditation. Then lights out.
Now I wish there were some insightful conclusion in all of this. To have used 10% Happier as a lens for us to view an overarching lesson about naming and branding that we could apply to be more productive commercial artists. Or I could be happy with what it is — a mindful observation of a brand I enjoy and nothing more.
[10% Happier creative department…call me.]
