Crafting a Brand Name: Creating the Perfect Name for your Business

1. Course Trailer: Welcome to the course 'Crafting a Brand Name - Creating the Perfect Name for your Business. Every single day, all of us are being exposed to a lot of brands and brand names. I always wondered about the process that a brand would have to go through to come up with a brand name. If you've had a similar thought, then you've come to the right place! In this course, we'll have a look at what's a brand name and how is it important?; The different qualities of an effective name; The various brand name types out there. We'll then dive deeper into the different naming categories and which ones are more recommended in terms of branding and business goals. Then we'll finally look at a practical approach to creating a brand name, the process behind it, and some tips and tricks along the way. Before we begin, I'd like to recommend these two books. The first one is 'Designing Brand Identity: an Essential Guide for the whole Branding Team' by Alina Wheeler. And the second one is the 'Psychology of Product Names' by Nick Kolenda. Most of the stuff I will be sharing in this course is based on my learnings from these two books, particularly. Do check out the resources shared along with the course. These would be very helpful for understanding the course well, and also as a reference guides for naming projects that you would work on. 2. What is a Brand Name?: Just like the name of a person, a brand name is a single word or a group of words that acts as an identification for the business. The brand name is considered to be one of the most important aspects of a brand because the name is what makes the brand stand out. This is what is displayed on the brand's products and various other communication and marketing assets, along with its logo. 3. Qualities of an Effective Name: A perfect brand name can create the required buzz, Position your business or company as a true leader in the industry, and differentiate your business from your competitors. Some of the qualities of an effective brand name are: The first one is Meaningful - The name communicates the brand image that the company wants to convey. The next point is being Distinctive: The name should be unique, easy to remember, pronounce and spell. Next point is Future-oriented: Should not limit the company and be adaptable for the company's future growth, change, and success. The fourth quantity is Modular: The best names are the ones that provide room for a company to build brand extensions with ease. Like in case of Twitter, the name extends itself into the brand functions like tweets, retweets, and Twitterati. The next quantity is being Protectable: Since a brand name is supposed to be unique, ensure that it can be owned or trademarked. And, in this digital world, also ensure that a domain of that name is available. The sixth quality of an effective brand name is Positive: for any brand entering into a particular market, the brand name has to have positive connotations associated with it and no strong negative meanings at all. The last quality of an effective name could be Visual: For an effective brand name, it should be a rule to make sure that the name lends itself well to the graphic presentation of the brand's logo, and in its brand architecture as well. For example, IBM is much more visualization friendly as compared to International Business Machines. 4. Brand Name Types: There are a wide variety of brand names out there. A lot of them could be placed into any of the seven brand name types. The first type is 'Founder': Many companies are named after their founders. For example, Baskin-Robbins, McDonald's. And, the next category is 'Descriptive': These names clearly convey the intent and nature of the company. Brands like Citibank, Toys R Us, and Pizza Hut are some examples for this type. The third type is 'Fabricated': In such names. the nature of the business will be unclear, but the names are distinctive and very unique. As the brand grows, such names become extremely effective in the consumer market. For example, Pinterest, Spotify, and Nivea. The fourth type of brand name is 'Metaphor': Essentially, pre-existing names of things, people, animals, mythological characters, or other foreign words are used to convey the quality of a brand's products or services. For example, brands like Apple, Amazon, Nike, Dove, Jaguar, and Tesla fall under this category. The fifth type is 'Acronym': These particular types of names are short words formed using the first letters of each of the words in a company's original names. For example, IBM derived from International Business Machines, HBO From Home Box Office, and ESPN, which stands for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network. The sixth type of brand name is 'Magic Spell': These names are created by altering the spelling of well-known words in order to create distinctive brand names while also conveying a sense of the business. Some of the popular examples of this category and Netflix, Tumblr and Awwwards. The seventh and final type is the 'Combination' style: Most of the other brand names existing in the market right now fall under this category, which is essentially a mix of two or more types discussed until now. For example, Airbnb, Under Armour, Papa John's. 5. Deep Dive: Naming Categories: Now, let's dive deeper into the various naming categories that should be considered while naming a product or a brand. The first category is the Descriptive names, which are essentially words that clearly described the nature of the business. For example, General Motors, Pizza Hut, Electronic Arts, etc. Next is the Deviant category, which is a real word, but has no clear relevance to the business or its products. For example, Apple, Amazon, Dove, Nike, have an actual meaning, but are in no way related to the nature of the products and businesses. They're only meant to have sort of deeper hidden meaning that could be associated to the brand's products and businesses. The third category is called Neologistic, which are actually non-words that are in no way relevant to the business and their products. For example, brand names like Nivea, Spotify, and Kodak fall under this category. The final category is the Associative category, which is non-word, essentially an imaginary word, that describes the nature of the business. For example, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Netflix. are, actually not real words but, in some way they do convey the nature of the business. 6. Branding Goals vs Business Goals: Now, in terms of Branding Goals, a brand name should be persuasive, memorable, distinctive, relevant, and emotional. In terms of Persuasion, the Deviant names and Associative names trigger curiosity and give a sense of a puzzle for our brain. Those would be much better suited if the intention is to persuade the viewer. In terms of Memorability, Associated names are the easiest to remember, with the Descriptive names being the least memorable because of how uninteresting and direct there. When it comes to Distinctiveness, all the three categories, except for Descriptive names, are very distinctive because all of them are either non-words or words that do not directly indicate the nature of the business. Now, with respect to Relevancy, people often find it easier to believe in a name consisting of the word or words that they're already used to. This is the reason why Descriptive and Associative names are found to be the most relevant. Now, when it comes to Emotion, which is sort of the final factor in terms of branding goals. Because of their metaphorical nature, Deviant names can convey the strongest emotion. For example, the simple name, Dove coveys strong feelings of purity, beauty, and innocence. Now, in a similar manner, if we look at the Business Goals point of view, a perfect brand name should be scalable, legally protectable, and SEO friendly. Scalability talks about the possibility of building up a strong meaning associated with the brand name over time. Since Neoogistic names are essentially blank canvases, they could be associated with the exactly intended perception overtime. Hence, this category of names is the most, most scalable. In terms of Legal Protection, that is, obtaining a trademark of the name. The Descriptive category is the weakest, most difficult to trademark, since it consists of words, they're directly described the nature of the company. Neologistic names are the strongest here because these names are non-existing words that have no prior meaning associated with them. So they were unique already. In the current scenario and digital age, a brand name should be SEO friendly. i.e. Search Engine Optimization friendly, to ensure its optimal digital presence. So, Nowadays, a catchy and memorable name is more important than a keyword-heavy descriptive brand name. As a result, Neoogistic names are the most SEO friendly, Followed by Associative and Deviant names. All in all, In terms of both Branding goals and Business goals, the Deviant names are the most preferable, with the Descriptive names being the least preferable when it comes to creating an effective brand name. 7. Practical Process for a Perfect Name: Now we'll look at a practical approach that freelance designers and small businesses could follow as their go-to process in coming up with a perfect brand name. For this, I'd be sharing the process that I followed to craft a brand name for one of my clients. Before we get into the process, it's a must to understand these three important rules. Rule one is, a brand name is one of the most valuable assets of a business. Rule two is, do not discard any ideas during explorations. There are no stupid ideas. Rule three is to always consider and evaluate the sound, cadence and the ease of pronunciation of a brand name. So coming to the business that I'm gonna be working on, it's a business that produces a mouth-watering range of flavorful cookies. These cookies are based on home-made recipes designed by a team of moms who love baking cookies. Let's now look at the different stages in the process of coming up with a brand name for the business. 8. Stage 1: Brand Attributes and Keywords: The first and foremost step is to list out all the brand attributes of the business, which are essentially words that describe the personality of a brand. This will help us understand what are the feelings that the business wants its potential customers to feel when they come across their brand name. In this particular cookie brands case, the main attributes are happy, friendly, and refreshing, sweet, pleasant, and welcoming. In the next step, let's list out some keywords that could act as a starting point for that explorations. These are the keywords that would be our reference during the brainstorming stage. 9. Stage 2: Brainstorming: This is the Brainstorming stage where we explore different ideas, whatever comes to mind. Remember, there are no stupid ideas at all. Let your creativity flow and keep listing down all the names that you would think would work really well for the brand based on whatever we have learned till now. Please have a look at the time-lapse video of me brainstorming some of the ideas for the client. 10. Stage 3: Finalizing Brand Name: After a thorough Brainstorming session, this is the final stage where we select a few ideas out of all the explorations and shortlist them. These were the shortlisted brand names for the brand or the client I was working with. Out of the shortlisted names, the final name that was selected for this brand was 'Moonlight Cookies'. Something that you will notice here is that the name sounds very pleasant and calm. It's very easy to pronounce and spell, and, is also unknown word, and, that makes it easy to remember as well. 11. Class Project: As we have reached the end of the course, I'd like to give you a project to work with. You could either rework on naming the cookie brand that I've worked on throughout this course. Or you could work on coming up with a brand name for a healthcare brand that makes medical equipment for older people or people with disabilities. Here's a mini brief that you could refer to while working on the naming project. 12. What next?: Do share your class project and feel free to reach out to me either here on Skillshare discussions or through my website or any social networks that I'm active on, I've mentioned all of those links on my profile. I love teaching on topics like Branding and Logo design. If you're interested, please check out all the courses that I have published already and do follow me to stay updated about all the new course realizes. This is a really great platform to learn any amazing skill. No matter if you're a beginner or an experienced professional, do checkout all the amazing courses taught by extremely talented people. I'll see you on a different course. Till then, Bye-Bye and Happy Learning.