Brand naming system methodology!

Recently, I took on a project to help a preschool education company upgrade its brand. One of the most critical tasks was to name the new brand.

During the communication process, I noticed one thing. Although everyone attaches great importance to brand naming, in reality, most people have no idea how to systematically derive a good name.

So the editor did a special analysis to share with you the systematic methodology for naming a brand.

Part 1: What benefits can a good name bring?

1. Low communication cost

A good name can bring easier recognition and more dissemination, making it easy for people to understand, distinguish and remember it . In other words, an ordinary name may cost 1 million to promote in order to achieve the desired effect, but a better name may only cost 700,000 or even less to achieve the same effect. This is a somewhat subjective difference, but we can roughly understand the value of a good name.

2. Have investment value

In the perception of Chinese people, meaningful numbers and short and memorable nouns are all valuable . Therefore, in the early stages of domestic Internet development, many people successfully accumulated their first pot of gold by selling domain names. The same is true in the field of trademarks. A good name that is short and meaningful also has investment value.

If the first question set a high tone for everyone, then we will pour cold water on the second question.

Part 2: Before naming, we should think about the following questions

1. Even the best name can’t save a bad product

Although the name is good, the product is not good. Even if it occupies a favorable starting position in the initial marketing, it cannot save the subsequent reputation.

2. There is no perfect name in the world

A name that is interesting and memorable may have been created with enough effort to attract attention. However, it does not score high in terms of category relevance, and there is even ambiguity in different contexts and regions.

Naming a child requires thinking, selection, and trade-offs from many dimensions, so be careful not to get too hung up on the naming issue. In today's business environment, "the only way to defeat all martial arts is to be faster" is a principle worth pondering.

3. For a company and product, a good name is indeed important, but not that important.

Work in the field of marketing is a very complex overall system. A single link can play a bonus role in marketing, but it will never have a decisive influence. A good name can't save a company. A bad name doesn't necessarily kill a business immediately.

Have a high enough level of awareness of this matter and be mentally prepared enough to be down-to-earth. Next we will move on to the practical part.

Part 3: What principles should be followed in the naming process?

Just like when I write copy, I am willing to use the form of "poison circle contraction" to gradually narrow the scope of creativity. When it comes to naming, we also need to find a series of principles that should be followed.

1. Ability to register

The most important prerequisite is that the name you choose can pass the trademark registration process . Even though there are a series of differences in the review process in different places, a name that cannot be registered is definitely not a good name.

So my habit is that when I think of a name, I will first check on the trademark search website to see if there is any overlap. The website I usually use for checking for duplicate content here is "BiaoKu.com". If you have a better choice, you are welcome to share it with everyone in the comments.

2. Visual layer: easy to identify, avoid uncommon characters

Many times we rely on visual impressions of brands. When we see a brand name for the first time, we may find that we don’t recognize it! Then our fate would basically not begin.

For example, Nongfu Spring recently launched a sparkling coffee drink called Tanbing (bīng), which is very unfriendly to people like us who have little education. As an illiterate, I only recently discovered that the shotgun I had read about for so long is actually called a shotgun.

3. Auditory layer:

It is best if the brand name is easy to read and not difficult to pronounce. I saw a friend share this greater than relationship on Zhihu and I agree with it very much:

Auditory layer of brand name > meaning > spelling.

4. Meaning: It is best to be able to understand without any negative associations

In reality, many brands are named with Chinese characters, but when they are put together we have no idea what they mean. Of course, the principles we list are just principles that we try our best to follow. In reality, there are still many companies that do not consider this aspect when naming, but it does not affect the development of the brand. For example, “Jia Duo Bao”. Frankly speaking, we don’t know what “Jia Duo Bao” means, but the product sells really well.

Regarding the bad connotations, many people cite the example of Goldlion Company. It is said that it was originally named "Golden Lion", but "lion" has the same pronunciation as "lose" in Cantonese, so the brand was later renamed.

5. Meaning layer: helps with category association

In fact, every industry has its own vocabulary . For example, in the children's education industry, I found that capturing keywords from aspects such as children, parents, teachers, schools, educational concepts, etc. would be more helpful for category association.

Different industries usually have vague perceptions in the minds of users. As marketers, when naming, we should also try our best to discover the user's perception of the category. The mind is difficult to change, and most of the time you can occupy a more advantageous position in the user's mind by adapting to the user's mind.

6. Visual association layer: Brand naming should have a visual sense

In practice, we do find that among a series of brand names, if there is something clear in the name, we will be more impressed.

This is probably why the Ali Zoo-style naming is so highly respected today.

7. Sense of drama and contrast

When there are two things in a name, and these two things are relatively contrasting, a stronger sense of drama is created. This also helps us remember the brand.

We will give some examples later to help you understand.

8. The length of the name should be as simple as possible, preferably within 4 characters, but not absolutely

In daily life, we see that most names are between 2 and 4 characters. The advantage of this is that the names are short and relatively easy to remember.

But in recent years, we have also noticed that short names are becoming increasingly difficult to register. At the same time, we also need to consider how many language elements are included in a name. Some names are very short, but each character is a distillation of its own meaning, and when put together they have no practical meaning. This may not be as memorable as a name that is a sentence in itself, or has only a few language elements.

For example, Han Han’s previous restaurant was called “Nice to Meet You”, which is very easy for everyone to remember.

Part 4: What routines and methods are worth learning when naming?

1. Rethink the industry, business, and products

The core of our business is to meet the needs of target users through products. However, in a situation where user demand is limited and there are an increasing number of competing products in the market, in what ways can we improve our own competitiveness? What makes us different? Does it have a long-term competitive advantage? These are all points worth thinking about.

When we have figured out our core strengths, we certainly hope to strengthen them through promotional programs such as names or slogans.

So we'd better think about whether the name can be linked to the core advantages .

Furthermore, from the perspective of brand assets, we very much hope to help brands build a consistent brand culture . For example, the famous catering brand named "Jia Ge Ya Zi" has attracted countless eyeballs and praises. The event they organized was called "Yazhai Lady Super Beauty Selection Contest", which is the consistency between the name and subsequent activities.

2. Create a new category for your product

When we name a brand, we often think of combining "brand name + category name".

In reality, many brands not only think about the brand name, but also think about whether the "category word" can be replaced with a better naming method .

For example, "Guazi Used Car Direct Sales Network", "Direct Sales Network" is such a naming method. Consumers can easily understand the meaning of "no middlemen making a profit from the price difference".

For example, a company that sells chickens named their product "mountain chickens", which sounds very aggressive when the market is full of names like "free-range chickens" and "free-range chickens".

3. We will give many examples of conventional naming methods later. Here we will give some more interesting and creative methods

(1) Word splitting method

Deleting some strokes to form new meanings: a knowledge service platform is named "Wanfang"; a condiment brand is named "Qianhe"

(2) Replacing the order of some words

The famous toy brand is called Toys "R" Us. The design of its brand name is to reverse the "R" in Toys "R" Us in English, turning it into Toys "Я" Us, thereby increasing its recognition.

A beer brand is named after the English word Beer with the order of the two letters reversed, and it is called Reeb, which means Libo in Chinese.

(3) From the perspective of pinyin spelling

Xiaomi’s kitchenware brand is named “Zhiwuzhu”, and the otter IP “Zhiyulv” both follow this route and are quite memorable.

(4) Naming with reduplicated syllables

For a long time, one of the famous naming styles in the world is the reduplication of characters. Two-character ones include Tantan, Maimai, Momo, and Didi; three-character ones include Huolala, Fangduoduo, Wahaha, and Renrendai.

The brand name with repeated characters has a rhythm and is very smooth to read.

In the fifth part, let’s understand good names and ordinary names through examples.

In fact, as I said before, business is a very complicated thing. A good name does not necessarily lead to success, and a bad name does not necessarily lead to failure. From a purely naming perspective, the following brand names are great. Simple and memorable

Fruits:

Apple mobile phone, Xigua Video, 6 Walnuts, Orange Juice, Blackberry mobile phone...

Plants & Foods:

Xiaomi mobile phone, Huajiao live broadcast, Tudou.com, Mogujie.com, Guokr.com...

Story category:

Alibaba (and the Forty Thieves), Starbucks (a character in the novel Moby Dick), Nezha Automobile…

Animals:

Hema Fresh, Three Squirrels, Ant Financial...

Ancient Poetry:

Baidu (I have been searching for him for thousands of times), Shiseido (The Book of Changes: Great is Kun Yuan, where all things grow), Zhihu (It is the same as the question)…

Syntax:

Changhong (long-lasting), Yijia (suitable for every room, suitable for every home)…

Association method:

999 Cold Remedy (fire alarm number), a noodle shop named "Let's meet in person"...

Homophonic method:

There is a milk tea shop called "Zhen Cha Ju". Although it does not serve tea, but discrimination is also a good meaning. The homophonic method has always been relatively marginalized in brand naming. The status is basically equivalent to that of a talk show host who gets paid for his puns.

English translation:

Papa John's is called "Papa Johns" abroad, which is basically equivalent to "Laoganma". Although the translation loses the intimacy of the English, it adds a tone of praise, which is considered a good translation.

But some names, to be honest, are very bad from my personal point of view. Not only is it incomprehensible, but it basically does not conform to most of the naming principles mentioned above. However, I have to emphasize here that although I personally don’t think these are good names, when you read on, you will find that I have never denied that these are all good brands.

South Beauty, it is hard to tell from the name that they mainly serve Sichuan cuisine; Haagen-Dazs, directly translated, does not have any special meaning, and when it was introduced to China, the advertisement promoted the feeling of high-end dessert; Disney: translation of a person's name; Chanel: translation of a person's name; Ford: translation of a person's name; Rockefeller: translation of a person's name; Yamaha: translation of a person's name; Virgin: It is said to mean "first venture, like a virgin", the fox means haha~ and Coca-Cola, it is said that when it was first introduced to China, it was called Tadak Gnawing Wax, and later it was renamed Coca-Cola and became popular;

From the above, we can see that these brands can hardly be called good names that we recognize today. But it does not affect the current value of these brands at all .

So, if your name does not pass the above test, strictly speaking, it doesn’t have much impact. It just doesn't add any points, it can't be said to be too much of a deduction.

Part 6: How do I use these methodologies to derive the naming of a children’s education brand?

As I collected a lot of tips on brand naming, I began to try to summarize my own approach. For this naming of the early childhood education brand, I took the following actions.

1. I collected a lot of brand names in the children's education industry, including childcare, early childhood education, and preschool education, and tried to find out if there are any commonalities among them;

2. Carefully analyze the market environment and existing courses of the brand, and provide strategic suggestions for the brand's future development;

3. Combining the methods proposed above, I wrote 100 names and picked out the ones that I thought were okay. Simply put, there are several methods used.

Imagery method:

Highlight some images in the field of children's education. For example, we often compare teachers to engineers of the soul, candles, gardeners, etc.

Digital method:

In the future, the company will also focus on education for children aged 0 to 6 in the long term, so the key number is transformed into traditional Chinese as "零六".

Animal Nomenclature:

Find animal images that are consistent with the field of children's education and dramatize the animal images. For example, pandas are originally black and white, so colorful pandas are relatively more interesting. Of course, the term "colorful panda" has actually been registered. But I believe you already get the meaning.

Super Symbol Method:

We look for elements that can be borrowed from various legends, modern stories, fairy tales, ancient poems, idioms, etc. and make a list of them. Word-splitting method: Sort out meaningful keywords in the field of children's education and arrange them.

Finally, I would like to share with you the names of all the attempts made this time. Among them, those registered by Party A were deleted, but I have searched for trademarks for each name in the table, and the registration probability is quite high, and some of them are duplicated.

That’s all for today. Actually, judging purely from the copywriting, the names shared by the editor this time cannot be said to be all brilliant, and many are even very mediocre. Some of the ones marked in red are the ones that I personally find quite interesting or that I think are more in line with the company. Just like what I share every time, the core is actually the decomposition and thinking of logic.

Author: Summer Fox

Source: Shuying.com