Naming Systems Strategy and Hierarchy

In this podcast, Ashley Elliott and Mike Carr explore the complexities of naming strategies, emphasizing the importance of context in making naming decisions. They discuss how names like "Dunkalatte" are designed for clarity and brand consistency, while luxury EVs, such as Ford’s "Mustang Mach-E," leverage existing brand equity and signal innovation. The conversation highlights the need to balance creativity with practicality, ensuring naming systems are flexible for future growth. They also stress the importance of considering the target audience's familiarity with the brand, legal availability, and cultural appropriateness, especially for global brands. Ultimately, effective naming requires a thoughtful blend of strategy, creativity, and market awareness.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and the Evolution of Naming
• 0:39 The Importance of Context in Naming
• 1:20 Dunkin’s Menu Strategy and Naming Simplicity
• 2:18 EV Naming Strategies: Mustang Mach-E vs. Tesla
• 3:44 Challenges with Numerical Naming and Future-Proofing Brands
• 6:38 Legal, Cultural Considerations, and Conclusion

Transcript

Ashley Elliott (00:12):

Hello and welcome to naming an AI age. Although today I think we should really consider naming an EV age or in a technology age. We really think about all the ways that naming has evolved over time based on the digital era. Should every name have its own naming system? Should every name have its own brand name? What do we really need to think about when it comes to naming

Mike Carr (00:38):

Out of context? It's easy to look at a name that's more of a descriptive name. It isn't real brand like and say, well, that's a crappy name. Why didn't they come up with something more creative? Well, there are many reasons for that. Had you understood the scenario, the situation, you would've said, that's absolutely the best name. Or if they're willing to spend a lot of money and depending upon the competitive set, and if all the competitors have boring, descriptive names and they're willing to put the time and effort into it, then a cool brand like name is definitely the way to go. Certain types of names will work really well for certain constituencies in terms of age, gender, parts of the world that they're in, other types of names would fall flat.

Ashley Elliott (01:19):

What are some other things that we may not consider as a lay person looking in to the things that had to be thought about when coming up with a name?

Mike Carr (01:27):

How is the name going to be used? Dunkin as an example. Well, Dunkin came out with Dunkin Latte for their new latte coffee, and the criticism was, well, that's a boring ho-hum name, lazy name. What are the constraints that Dunkin's working within and what are the goals that they're trying to accomplish? Right? So they have a menu board, right? And they have some consistency in the names across that menu board, not in every case, and they want to lean into their Dunkin equity, so they want to build names that differentiate, Hey, this is a Dunkin branded product, and they want to quickly communicate what it is. Well, it's a latte dunk. A latte doesn't require hardly any brainpower. You're driving up to the Dunkin window and you want to order a latte, and that's what it is. You don't have to ask any questions. Maybe you can pick a flavor and you're done.

(02:17):

I think it's a great name in that constraint of you've got a menu board, you got a bunch of other names, you're not going to spend a ton of money building some fufu brand and then cause confusion and have your customers try to figure out what exactly is that thing. That's a totally different environment than if you're a very upscale automotive brand and you're selling a new $40,000 ev, and you're going to put some money behind that, right? You're going to drive people to that dealership or to the website, and you're maybe in a situation where your competitor's names are esoteric and meaningless, and so you have a different target. They're going to 40 grand, not four bucks for a coffee. They're going to put a lot more time and effort into what that decision's all about, and a name that is a little bit cooler that has more of a story, they're going to spend more time listening to that story.

Ashley Elliott (03:13):

There's one thing with thinking about brand equity specifically with the coffee situation, but if it's an EV and some people use, they have the Mustang Mach E versus one that has a specific model Y or model X, I think specifically with Tesla, what's the difference and is there a risk of overpromising and under-delivering when it comes to the Mustang is known for a certain thing, but if you have an EV and something goes wrong with that, is there some risk involved with there? Does that play a difference in the naming situation?

Mike Carr (03:43):

The Mustang, it is a hollowed brand name. I mean, it's been around for decades. There's a certain sporty image associated with the Mustang. The M as a sub-brand has got also a very storied history. You think about Mach three, Mach five, Mach seven, there's a performance implication there. When you put the E on the end of it, instead of a number, it does take you to electric. So it's sort of cool and you're not diminishing the value of both the Mustang brand or the mock brand with some other longer maybe cool name. But then it takes away from the other two things that you're trying to build equity in or maintain equity in and update and refresh. First and foremost, we want Mustang still be a very hip relevant brand, especially for the younger folks that are now buying the car for the first time upgrading.

(04:43):

We still want to retain though that equity for the older buyers that still want to think of themselves as younger. So there are lots of decisions that go into that kind of branding and naming and thought process. It doesn't take a lot of brand building to put a little E on the end of a mock and for people to sort of get like, oh, that E stands for electric. I mean, that's pretty simple, pretty straightforward. Whereas you look at some of the other car that are EVs now and they've got the IX four something or other or the, I mean, they're just meaningless gobbledygook, and it's much harder to figure out is that electric or not? I mean, what is

Ashley Elliott (05:24):

That? Using a numerical system is not always helpful if you have to discontinue a specific brand and stuff like that, would you want to, and I guess with the alphabet too, just depending on, unless you want that letter to specifically stand for something,

Mike Carr (05:36):

Does your naming system, if you need to have a good, better, best relationship, so this can be for automobiles, like BMW has the I three, the I five, and the I seven. Well, if you're a BMW customer and you're very familiar with the series three, series five or the series seven, then that's not a big leap. Putting a little eye in there for the electric connotation makes a lot of sense, and you get it because you're part of the BMW ecosystem. You've been exposed and been paying attention to their advertising for years. If BMW is trying to track a lot of new people into their ecosystem that aren't that familiar with the different series names, it's not a very good name, right? It doesn't have any emotional cache, any appeal. And it also might be a little bit too limiting down the road if all of a sudden BMW wants to put something in between the I three and the I five, well, they call it I four.

(06:38):

Great, now you've got good, better, best I three, I four, I five. Well then let's say in a couple of years they want to put something between the I four and the I five. Well, then what do you do? Well, the I 4.5 and the credit card companies we worked for over the decades, you had the silver card, believe it or not, at one point there was a silver credit card and that was used as more premium than the standard. And then of course they came up with the gold, then they came up with the platinum, and then it was like, what comes after platinum? And that gets to be, well, you've got the black card that's sort of different than gold where you've got titanium. Well, is titanium really a better card than platinum? So when you come up with a naming system where you're going to have this hierarchical good, better, best, you need to think about over time, does it give you the flexibility to add additional offerings anywhere, not just at the high end and not just at the low end, but often in between. And now you're sort of in a pickle because what's better than silver but not as good as gold silver plus? I don't know. That's part of the problem,

Ashley Elliott (07:49):

Man. I can just see those old comic strips, and I guess they still have 'em now on some of these where you have the explicative and they have all these little symbols. We're just going to have a name with just a bunch of little symbols at the end of it and have to figure out what that means. But yeah, no, that's super helpful to think of flexibility within a naming system, not pigeonholing yourself into a certain structure to where later on you're not able to expand as needed. So I think that's super helpful. Anything else you have for us?

Mike Carr (08:14):

Never, ever discount context. There's so many things that go into picking the right kind of name beyond just how that name initially hit you, right? What is the brand strategy? What other names that you may already have? Does the new name need to work with? How disruptive or revolutionary do you want the name to be versus evolutionary? And then the targets, usually it's not just a single focus. You've got a primary and a secondary and a tertiary. Is the name legally available? Does the name mean anything that's offensive to one of the key constituencies that you're targeting? Is your vision over time to go outside the us? What other languages, what other cultures, what other considerations should there be? So it's a fun journey, but it's not a simple journey, and that's why we've been doing this for almost 40 years,

Ashley Elliott (09:12):

And every layer is another layer peeled that we try to get to the center of a good name. So we appreciate that. Thank you for all your insight today, Mike. And stay tuned with us as we talk more about naming in an AI age.