How should brand names be chosen? Is the name important for brand management?

Question

How should brand names be chosen? Is the name important for brand management?

Answer 1

Today, effective brand names strongly and uniquely describe the product segment for any given product.  

For example, if I were creating a new product segment called vegetable energy drinks, I might name the product Vegeboost or some thing similar.

Clearly define the product segment first and then find a name that the clearly describes it.

Answer 2

Many large companies have guidelines that are attached to their brand naming. Naming products is a design process that starts with word associations that are linked to the item/thing your are trying to name. Once you come up with about 100 or so of these you narrow it down to your top 50, then 10, then 5, then 3, then 1. As you choose your name you have to think about how it identifies the item/thing. Brewed Awakening is....guess what.....a name of a coffee company. I used to sell screen printing inks or plastisols and we created a stretch ink so I called it Spand-E-Sol. We made an ink that you put in a bottle, squirt out onto a T-shirt and since plastisols have to be heated or baked on, I called it Therm-O-Line. See the connections? With catchy names, people could identify it and associate it with the company. If these were dull names with little or no meaning then it would not have been as effective. People talked about it and could remember the name and I ended up with a lot of free marketing and a whole lot of sales.

Once you have picked a good name that lends itself to a great and fun logo design then you start the sketches. After you have about 50 to 100 of those you can narrow this down to 3 then 1.

Yes, Yes, Yes, the name is ALL IMPORTANT. Advertising and Marketing products is all about getting the name, slogan, etc into the head of the buyer and when they are standing on the isle ready to buy laundry detergant, then they will go for price, name, color, and design and in a matter of seconds that item will be in the cart ready to buy.

Answer 3

here is a decent checklist for naming...

Who are my consumers?

How long should the name be?

Do the sounds in the name have the right appeal?

What associations should the name evoke?

What are the foreign language implications of the name?

How should I test the name?

How will the name appear in directories?

Can I trademark the name?

Is the internet domain name equivalent available?

Does the name have any "internal letter sequences" that could trigger spam filters  (e.g. tiresexpress has 's*x' in it)

Answer 4

Marketing theory suggests that there are three main types of brand name:

(1) Family brand names:

A family brand name is used for all products. By building customer trust and loyalty to the family brand name, all products that use the brand can benefit.

Good examples include brands in the food industry, including Kellogg’s, Heinz and Del Monte. Of course, the use of a family brand can also create problems if one of the products gets bad publicity or is a failure in a market. This can damage the reputation of a whole range of brands.

(2) Individual brand names:

An individual brand name does not identify a brand with a particular company.

For example, take the case of Heinz. Heinz is a leading global food manufacturer with a very strong family brand. However, it also operates many well-known individual brand names. Examples include Farleys (baby food), Linda MacCartney Foods (vegetarian meals) and Weight Watcher’s Foods (diet/slimming meals and supplements).

Why does Heinz use individual brand names when it has such a strong family brand name? There are several reasons why a brand needs a separate identity – unrelated to the family brand name:

• The product may be competing in a new market segment where failure could harm the main family brand name

• The family brand name may be positioned inappropriately for the target market segment. For example the family brand name might be positioned as an upmarket brand for affluent consumers.

• The brand may have been acquired; in other words it has already established itself as a leading brand in the market segment. The fact that it has been acquired by a company with a strong family brand name does not mean that the acquired brand has to be changed.

(3) Combination brand names:

A combination brand name brings together a family brand name and an individual brand name. The idea here is to provide some association for the product with a strong family brand name but maintaining some distinctiveness so that customers know what they are getting.

Examples of combination brand names include Microsoft XP and Microsoft Office in personal computing software and Heinz Tomato Ketchup and Heinz Pet Foods.

so this is the way to choose a good brand.