Product naming

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Product naming is the discipline of deciding what a product will be called, and is very similar in concept and approach to the process of deciding on a name for a company or organization. Product naming is considered a critical part of the branding process, which includes all of the marketing activities that affect the brand image, such as positioning and the design of logo, packaging and the product itself. Product naming involves the application of creative and linguistic strategy and results in a brand name that becomes a product’s shorthand.

The process involved in product naming can take months or years to complete. Some key steps include specifying the objectives of the branding, developing the product name itself, evaluating names through target market testing and focus groups, choosing a final product name, and finally identifying it as a trademark it for protection.[1]

Contents

[edit] Principles

A key ingredient in launching a successful company is the selection of its name.[2] Product names that are considered generally sound have several qualities in common.

  • They strategically distinguish the product from its competitors by conveying its unique positioning
  • They hold appeal for the product’s target audience
  • They imply the brand’s benefit
  • They are available for legal protection.
  • They allow companies to bond with their customers to create loyalty.
  • They have a symbolic association that fortifies the image of a company or a product to the consumers.
  • They help motivate customers to buy the product.

[edit] Types of names

Brand names for American products typically fall into one of four categories: descriptive, suggestive, arbitrary and fanciful.

[edit] Descriptive

Descriptive names ascribe to the product a characteristic, feature, ingredient, appearance or geographic location. Examples of descriptive product names include Philadelphia Cream Cheese, Florida Orange Juice, Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Transitions Lenses.

Descriptive product names can be overly long. Also, these names can become genericized and turned into a category name instead of a brand, exemplified by Rollerblade and Dry Ice.

[edit] Suggestive

Suggestive names, the second type of names, suggest or hint at a product’s key features or benefits. They are allusive and are often formed by metaphors, allusions or simile.

Suggestive product naming is common in business-to-consumer categories such as food and household goods. Bounty paper towels, Hershey’s Kisses candy, Always feminine products, Kellogg’s Nutri-Grain bars and the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser cleaning product are all examples of suggestive product names that are meant to imply a variety of positive associations to consumers. Both descriptive and suggestive names are composed only of natural English words that either work alone or in combination to form a literal or abstract name.

[edit] Arbitrary

The third category of names, arbitrary, do not describe a product or literally suggest a product meaning. They are likewise not adapted from features or benefits of the product. They are literally arbitrary. Arbitrary names can be made up of either coined or natural words. Apple, for example, was created because Steve Jobs worked on an apple farm and also believed apples to be the perfect fruit.

[edit] Fanciful

Fanciful or coined names, also referred to as neologisms, are often perceived as a recent phenomenon and as "completely made up," although neither of these assumptions is true. They have been popular in the United States for more than a century, evidenced by established brands like Crayola, Coca-Cola, Jell-O and Kool Aid. These product names are so readily understood that, to many people, they simply do not sound coined.

Names that are usually judged to be the most effective are "meaningfully coined"; that is, they are built on descriptive or suggestive words that have meaning for the target market. Examples are Lunchables (“lunch” + “ability”) and Motorola’s RAZR (a stylized re-spelling of “razor,” which alludes to the cell phone’s thin profile).

[edit] Product naming techniques

Linguistically, names are developed by combining morphemes, phonemes and syntax to create a desired representation of a product.

Morphemes differ from words in that many morphemes may not be able to stand alone. The Sprint name is composed of a single word and a single morpheme. Conversely, a brand like Acuvue is composed of two morphemes, each with a distinct meaning. While "vue" may be able to stand as its own word, "acu" is seen as a prefix or a bound morpheme that must connect to a free morpheme like "vue."[3]

Phonemes are minimal units of sound. Depending on the speaker’s accent, the English language has about 44 phonemes.[4] In product naming, names that are phonetically easy to pronounce and that are well balanced with vowels and consonants have an advantage over those that are not. Likewise, names that begin with or stress plosive consonant sounds B, hard C, D, G, K, P or T are often used because of their attention-getting quality.[5] Some phoneme sounds in English, for example L, V, F and W are thought of as feminine, while others such as X, M and Z are viewed as masculine.[6]

Syntax, or word order, is key to consumers’ perceptions of a product name. Banana Republic would not carry the same meaning were it changed to "Republic Banana." Syntax also has significant implications for the naming of global products, because syntax has been argued to cross the barrier from one language to another.[7] (See the pioneering work on Universal Grammar by Noam Chomsky)

Some specific product naming techniques, including a combination of morphemes, phonemes and syntax are shown in the graph below.

Method Brand
Alliteration Coca-Cola
Oxymoron Krispy Kreme
Combination Walkman
Tautology Crown Royal
Theronym Mustang
Mimetics Google
Eponym Trump Tower
Description Cinnamon Toast Crunch
Synecdoche Staples
Poetics USA Today
Metonymy Starbucks
Allusion London Fog
Haplology Land O'Lakes
Clipping Fed Ex
Morphological borrowing Nikon
Omission RAZR
Acronym adaptation BMW
Backronym KFC
Founder's name Ferrari
Classical roots Pentium
Arbitrary Apple
Reduplication Spic and Span

[edit] Trademarks

A consideration companies find important in developing a product name is its "trademarkability." Product name trademarks may be established in a number of ways:

  • In many countries, including the United States, names can be used as trademarks without formal registration through first use or common law—simply to protect an established product’s name and reputation.
  • Product names can be formally registered within a state, with protection limited to that state’s borders.
  • In the United States, a federal trademark registration is filed with the USPTO and offered protection for as long as the mark is in use.
  • The preeminent system for registering international trademarks in multiple jurisdictions is the Madrid system.

In addition, protecting a trademark is just as important as the initial process of registration. Trademark rights are maintained through actual use of the trademark, and will diminish over time if a trademark is not actively used.

[edit] International considerations

Because English is widely viewed as a global language, with over 380 million native speakers, many international trademarks are created in English. Still, language differences present difficulties when using a trademark internationally.

[edit] Product naming faux pas

Many companies have stumbled across the importance of considering language differences in marketing new products.

  • Ford Caliente, meaning "hot" in Spanish, is also slang in many countries for "streetwalker."
  • Irish Mist introduced its drink brand in Germany without knowing that "mist" is German slang for excrement.
  • A Spanish potato chip brand called Bum did not sell well in the United States due to the negative connotations it carried.
  • When French speakers pronounce the Toyota MR-2 product name, it sounds like "emmerdeux," a profane word.
  • Reebok named a women’s sneaker Incubus.[8] In medieval folklore, an incubus was a demon who ravished women in their sleep.
  • One firm tried to sell a de-icer in the United States by the name "Super-Piss."
  • Nissan sought to sell a sports car in the United States in the early 1970s called "Fair Lady." It later sold better as the 240Z.
  • The Honda Fitta was renamed Jazz after discovering that fitta is Norwegian and Swedish slang for the female genitals.
  • The Mitsubishi Pajero was named 'Montero' (mountaineer, highlander) in Spain because pajero means 'wanker' in colloquial Spanish.

[edit] Naming companies

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Kohli, C., & LaBahn, D.W. (1997). Observations: Creating effective brand names: a study of the naming process. Journal of Advertising Research, 37.
  2. ^ Fred Barrett, "Names That Sell: How to create Great Names for Your Company, Product, or Service", 1995
  3. ^ Bloomfield, L. (1984). Language, University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226060675
  4. ^ Sousa, D. (2004). How the brain learns to read, Corwin Press. ISBN 1412906016
  5. ^ Guth, D.W. "A Few Words on Words."
  6. ^ Snyder Bulik, B. (2006). What’s in a name? More than you might think, study says. "Ad Age".
  7. ^ Cook, V.J., & Newson, M. (1996). Chomsky’s Universal Grammar: An Introduction, 2nd ed., Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 0631195564
  8. ^ The Journal Record (Oklahoma City). February 20, 1997. Reebok has devil of a time with demonic shoe name.

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_naming"
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