5 Common Naming Mistakes

In this episode, NameStormers CEO Mike Carr discusses the importance of choosing engaging and memorable names for products or companies, citing examples such as Snapple and eBay, which demonstrate the power of names that are not necessarily descriptive but capture attention. He also warns against the mistake of ignoring the target audience when naming a product or company. Carr emphasizes the importance of a name being memorable and sticky. 

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 1:05 Expecting Too Much from a Name
• 2:30 Ignoring Your Target Audience
• 3:23 Not Managing Expectations
• 4:29 Expecting Love at First Sight
• 5:24 Ignoring the Golden Rule of Naming
• 7:40 Contact Information

Transcript

Mike Carr (00:10): 

I am so glad you joined today because I want to make sure you don't make the same mistakes when it comes to name development that so many of our clients come to us and talk about how they've gone down those forough paths. So let me start by saying naming is really tough, so you need to give yourself a break. Cannot be so hard on yourself or on your team. You may find it a little more challenging that first go and not get where you want to be. You may have to go through it a second time and a third time and not be real happy with the results. But I think if you follow the five things to avoid, you'll at least be headed on that path, hopefully in a little bit smoother way. So the first one is expecting too much from a name. 

(01:05): 

A name that tries to say everything. Doesn't say anything clearly. So a better way to think about a name you want to intrigue, you want to hint at some good things to come, but you don't want to reveal everything. So a name's job is to catch the attention, create some excitement and curiosity, and you really want to avoid these overly descriptive names that tend to be dull and boring. So three examples of actual descriptive names and their sort of more engaging counterpart. Unadulterated food products, very descriptive, but what about Snapple as the new name, sort of interesting or research in motion. Research about movement moving around, or the Blackberry or auction web auctions on the web, I get that. Or eBay. These examples highlight the power of names that are more engaging even though they're not as descriptive as you perhaps might start. Now, number two is a mistake that you're going to say you're not going to make, but I can almost promise you we've seen a lot, not everyone, not the majority, but a lot of companies make this mistake and that is ignoring your target. 

(02:30): 

So let's say you're coming out with a new product and you're targeting Gen Zers and you've got eight senior managers and brand managers and insight people on the call when we presenting our name, then guess what? Every one of those people is 30 years old or older, but they're targeting Genzer or a global client, strong in North America, strong in Europe, strong in Latin and Central America, but now they're going after the Asia Pacific Country's, China, Japan, South Korea, 12 people on this call from all over the world. We have to do this call at six in the morning. You got five people from North America, you have four people from eu. You have two people from Latin South America, and you've got 1 1, 1 person from China. And by the end of the call, no one's paid any attention to the one person, only one out of 12 that was from the market that they were targeting. 

(03:23): 

So don't ignore your target audience. Number three, not managing expectations. And this is so common now with ai. You've got chat, GPT, you've got Gemini, you've got Quad three, and everybody's excited about using these tools to try to come up with some names. And so you go through thousands of names. It takes you days. Days, everybody's burned out, but you've got three names. Three names the team thinks are pretty good. You submit 'em to legal and guess what? Not a single one makes it through. Well, here's the problem. Trademark law is based upon how a name is pronounced, not how it's spelled, and not just how it's pronounced, how it's pronounced by a native speaker in that particular country with that particular dialect. Number four, I will know it when I see it. Oh my gosh, this scares the bejeebers out of me. Expecting love at first sight is not a good thing. 

(04:29): 

First of all, it rarely happens, which leads to disappointment if that's going to be the assumption going in. If it does happen, it usually happens for the wrong reasons, and you often miss names that actually have greater potential, but don't necessarily grab you the right way when you first hear them. Amazon, it's a big river. Where piranha eat you alive. Apple computer, you got to be kidding me. That's what you give a teacher. It's not the name of a computer. Google. That's what my six month old says Google when they're learning how to talk. Yet those were all great names. They had tremendous potential, but they weren't necessarily the name that when you first saw it, you were going to fall in love with it. Names are like babies. They're fragile. They take lots of care. You have to be careful with them. But when you wrap the right story around them, the right context, the right graphics, they tend to blossom and come alive. 

(05:24): 

And of last one. Number five, ignoring the golden rule of naming. Can your target remember it? Is it memorable? Now, it's hard to test for this. We have some methodologies that are, we think really good at looking at behavior, not asking the question, but a cheap way. A do it yourself way. If you're on a limited budget, let's say you've got six that are pretty good and you go to half a dozen of your friends, a dozen of your friends that you trust, maybe they're in the industry, hopefully they have some knowledge of the market. They're similar to the people you're targeting, and you ask them what they think of the names, right? You give 'em a little bit of story, a little bit of context, and they give you your thought, their thoughts, and they love this name. Here's why you thank them very much. 

(06:08): 

You let one day go by one day and you simply ask a question, which of the names that we talked about yesterday, can you remember? That's it. Unaided recall, 24 hours later. And guess what? If they can't remember any of the names back to square one. If you're naming a new company or you're naming a new brand, you need a name that sticks into the brain like peanut butter. If you don't get that, you're going to spend whatever budget you have just trying to get that unaided awareness score up to where it needs to be before you can start building preference. So in summary, naming's tough. This is rarely as easy as you think it's going to be. So don't expect great things right out of the chute, but try to avoid some of these most common mistakes, and I think things are a little bit smoother. 

(07:00): 

So in recap, there are five of them expecting too much from a name. Don't do that. Don't ignore your target audience. Don't pretend that expectations aren't important. You need to manage expectations. Don't assume love at first sight. Try to avoid that. Try to talk folks out of that. And most importantly, number five, the golden rule. Can people remember the thing, right? Can they remember the name? Is it inherently memorable? Is it sticky? If you need any help, we're of course here to help you. You can call me on my personal cell phone number. My name is Mike Carr. My number is two nine one seven six nine two three. You can call anytime you want. If I'm not available, it'll go to voicemail and I'll try to give you a call back the very next day and find out a little bit more about what you're interested in. Best of luck to you in your naming journey.