It's all in the name...

It really is all in the name – as people we tend to have a conservative bent to our naming - John, Thomas, Julie, Frank, and so on.  Every once in a while you see a name that stands out from the rest. Take “Moon” Zappa for instance, or Gwyneth Paltrow’s little girl “Apple” names that don’t exactly fit into the main stream – but is that a bad thing?

Maybe not for a child, but it can be for an inventor trying to come up with a name for the product that will eventually emerge from the hard fought technology being developed in the basement.

Let’s start by looking at some product names that simply should have never made their way to the store shelf.  What were they thinking?

Pee Cola (Beverage)

Spontex (sponges)

Poo (Potato chips)

Fridge Balls (air fresheners for your fridge)

Anusol  (Cream…you can guess what kind)

Bimbo (Sandwich bread)

Wack-Off (Insect repellent)

Now in all fairness there has been a long standing debate in the marketing world about this issue. Some experts say only use names that are descriptive of your product, some say use names that are catchy and have nothing to do with your product, and still others say anything goes – use a name that will get “Top of Mind” (a marketing term that describes remembering something before something else) the wackier the better.

I tend to stay in the middle. In most cases I think a name should be somewhat descriptive of the use of a product simply because you have so little time to communicate value to the consumer and the name is a prime place to do that. Short of an obvious descriptive nature to the name, it should have some memory to it in terms of getting the consumer to think of it rather than the competitors. All in all I tend to use a set of simple rules to stay on the right track for naming a product.

1.    Never name a product after a derogatory term and never use a term or phrase that could offend the consumer in any way.

2.    Always keep it as short as possible – consumers are bombarded with images and things to remember, short and sweet will always win out over long and complicated

3.    Funny works great when it can be used, but don’t force feed funny

4.    Don’t be afraid to use a tag line to add additional information or act as a clarifier for the name itself

5.    Complicated names make the consumer feel stupid – it may not be true, but they assume everyone else gets it and they don’t. This brings them right back to an earlier bad memory and creates an indelible line between that bad memory and your product – not good for sales.

6.    Hooked on Phonics – the consumer has to be able to phonetically pronounce your product name. If they can’t, they feel stupid, and there’s that line again back to an unhappy time in Mr. Smith’s 3^rd grade English class where all the other kids made fun of them. I knew a lady once years ago who for 20 years refused to buy Neapolitan Ice Cream because she thought it said “Napoleon”. She had taken a history class and learned that Napoleon was not such a nice person. She made a mental link between the name and the product. All because she couldn’t pronounce the name phonetically.  This may be an extreme case, but it’s true. 

Now these are just my rules, and for you they would be suggestions. Unfortunately there are no "one size fits all" guidelines for naming products. Rather a set of socially driven boundaries and memory tricks we try to work within.

Remember, the name adds a level of value to the product, so making it something the consumer can smile about is always helpful to the purchasing decision since at the end of the day the act of purchasing is all about turning their emotion into your cash.