8 Brand Naming Formulas You Can Learn and Use Right Away

Although a brand name cannot determine the fate of a company's development, it still plays a vital role in the company's marketing system.

But how do you know whether a brand name is good or bad? We can judge using three dimensions:

1. Can it lower the threshold for brand recognition? The cognitive threshold mainly tests the difficulty of understanding the brand name and its relevance to the business.

When a good brand name is seen or heard, the audience can intuitively know the type of business the brand is engaged in without too much explanation or introduction.

2. Can it reduce the brand’s communication costs? The communication cost mainly tests whether the brand name has a strong memorability and can leave an impression in people's minds after hearing it once.

Especially for brands that do not have a large budget for advertising, a memorable name will achieve twice the result with half the effort in terms of publicity and word-of-mouth sharing.

3. Will it cause the audience to have bad brand associations? The cultures of different parts of China are complex and varied, and many Chinese people believe in fortune and feng shui, so you should consider carefully when choosing a name and try not to touch on words that have negative associations in the country or certain regions.

For example, Mr. Luo’s Hammer phone. The original intention of the hammer is to convey a spirit of craftsmanship and it is also a memorable mother symbol, but in Sichuan dialect, the hammer is usually used to express negative meanings such as "dishonest, unreasonable, bullshit".

Based on this naming standard, eight practical naming formulas are summarized that we can quickly refer to and apply.

Matrix symbol method = plant/fruit or character/object

Plants/fruits: plants or fruits that are popular in daily life, such as Apple mobile phones, Tudou.com, Mogujie, Guazi used cars, Xigua Video, Mango TV, Pear Video, Douban, Wandoujia, Lizhi FM, etc.

Character/object category, characters or objects that are familiar to everyone and have a vivid memory, such as Hammer Mobile Phone, Master Kong, Lao Gan Ma, Mafengwo, Magic Cube Apartment, Bread Travel, Graphite Documents, Yangmatou, etc.

Quantifier + symbol method = quantifier + animal, plant/thing

Quantifier + animal, plant/thing. Usually, this quantifier represents meaningful quantity, time, or scarcity. If used in the field of food and fast-moving consumer goods, it will make the product appear to be made of real and sufficient materials. At the same time, quantifiers also greatly increase the probability of successful trademark registration. Such as Three Squirrels, Six Walnuts, One Leaf, Wuliangye, Yixi, Yitiao, Ergeng Video, The Ninth Classroom, Ten O'clock Reading, etc.

Symbol + Category Association = Animals and Plants + Category Words or Positive Emotions + Category Words

Animals and plants + category words not only borrow the mother symbols of animals and plants that are highly memorable, but also allow the audience to quickly know the brand's business type through category words, achieving the effect of killing two birds with one stone. Such as Tmall, Tuniu, Fliggy, Sohu, Sogou, Ant Financial, Hema Fresh, etc.

Positive emotions + category words. Humans tend to be attracted to beautiful things and reject depression and negative emotions. Such as HEYTEA, LELECHA, ZHIHAIGAGO, MEITUAN, and Perfect Diary.

Reduplication + Category Association = Two-Character Reduplication or Three-Character Reduplication

The advantage of reduplication is that it is catchy and friendly. If the reduplication can be related to the business, usually two words are enough, such as QQ, Didi, Wangwang, Dingding, Maimai, Momo, Tantan, etc.

When the reduplicated words used cannot directly associate with the business, you can add another category word, such as Pinduoduo, Taopiaopiao, Huolala, Wahaha, Chuchu Street, Renrendai, etc.

Modification + Category Association = Modifier + Category Word

The main purpose of modifiers is to convey the characteristics of a brand in a certain field to the audience and to distinguish it from the conventional categories recognized by the public on the market. Such as WeChat, Softbank, Alipay, BOSS Direct, etc.

Cultural association method = story type or ancient poetry type or idiom type

Story type, quoting characters or things from well-known stories, such as Alibaba, Starbucks, Nezha car, etc.

For ancient poetry, we select representative words from ancient poetry and reorganize them, while also ensuring that they are not difficult to pronounce, such as Baidu, Shiseido, Zhihu, Qingyang, Clinique, Nanshan, and Yadeli.

Idioms: Same as ancient poetry, select the core characters in the idioms to recompose new words, such as IKEA, Changhong, Tengda, etc.

Homophonic method = Chinese homophonic or English homophonic

Chinese homophones are to change one or more characters in commonly used words in daily life into homophones related to the brand business. Such as Huabei, Xiaoshile, Zhenchaju, Weilai, Xianyu, Zhenai.com, etc.

English homophones usually mean choosing English words with good meanings or related to the business, and then transliterating the English words into Chinese words. Such as Subway, Pepsi, Safeguard, Uniqlo, Airbnb, Hellobike, Mobike, etc.

Idiomatic speaking = catchy everyday expressions

In every field, there are some daily expressions that appear very frequently. Using these daily expressions as brand names is a very pleasing way, but the disadvantage is that it may result in relatively long names. Such as Ele.me, What's Worth Buying, Qunar, Toutiao, I Love My Family, Sing, Moji Weather, Qiongyou, Jike, etc.

Of course, in addition to thinking about a name, another important thing is to search the trademark website in advance before registering. It is very likely that the name you like has been registered by other companies in the same category. Therefore, naming is usually a repetitive, lengthy and brain-burning task.

Author: Lao Pao

Source: Laopao OG (laopaostrategy)