Where Did They Come Up with That Name?

I was recently asked to appear on a radio broadcast in which a client, the host of the radio show, was discussing its new brand name. The old name of the organization was more than a decade old and no longer captured the essence of the organization. In fact, the name was actually misleading. So, they set off on a rebranding project to find a new name and logo that better captured who they are today, and left room for additional growth.

As I helped them with their project, I started thinking about the “categories” of brand names.

Rebranding is something we do often in the agency, and I admit that it is not my area of specialty. But, it is something I think about a lot and often sit back and wonder how a company possibly came up with their particular name. As I think about it, I see four different types of brand names in the marketplace. The kind of name you want often says a lot about where your organization is and where it is going.

1. Names of People, after a founder. Frito-Lay for Herman Lay, DuPont, Armani, Chrysler to name a couple. This is still popular with many professional services.
2. Descriptive Names. These are names that describe what a company does or produces. IBM began as International Business Machines or 3M as Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company. Restaurants still do this frequently.
3. Empty Vessel Names. These are names that mean nothing but like Google, have started to take on a life of their own. But, even Google had a reason for being — a play on the word “googol,” a mathematical term for the number represented by the numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros — their goal for the amount of information. More and more brands are taking this route, with instructions like “make it sound technical or medical.”
4. Visual Picture Names. Companies select names based on an inspirational thought like Amazon which was selected because the company’s vision was flowing products like the Amazon River or Nike, the Greek goodness of victory.

Many names, like the new one for the organization we were discussing on the radio program, actually end up being a combination of a descriptive empty vessel and visual picture; in this case, cityCURRENT.

But, selecting a name is just step one to building a brand. A rebrand is not simply changing a logo or a name; it is everything that an organization encompasses. Not to mention all of the considerations to be made, including — but not limited to — trademark and registration abilities, website domain availability, social media handle names, how the name will look in all iterations of the logo from business cards and letter head to step-and-repeat banners.

It’s easy to get excited about designing a new logo for your company; but remember to think much bigger than just that.

Ralph Berry