Effective Naming Strategies
Heckler Associates has named hundreds of successful companies and products, playing a foundational role in building successful global brands such as Starbucks, Panera, Cinnabon and K2. As a full-service communication design firm with integrated services, we offer a seamless, brand building approach that covers all strategic and tactical components.
Unique brand names serve as relevant 'empty vessels,' their meaning filled entirely by brand equity. Naming strategies that embrace market trends and conventions or associate too closely to common words signal a follower’s position. They reduce the opportunity for distinction, limit assimilation of your brand values, and make legal protection difficult.
A unique brand name is a powerful, essential tool for building brand equity that you alone will define and own legally and in the minds of your audience. It receives, stores and protects all the meaning you develop, and supports an industry leadership position.
Heckler Associates provides proven naming strategies and objective methods to efficiently lead and expedite corporate identity, corporate branding or product naming processes, using methods pioneered and refined over decades of building global brands.
The Naming Strategy Question: To re-brand or not re-brand
As businesses evolve, sometimes a brand name that works for one phase may not work for another. Determining when and how to adjust naming strategy or re-brand entirely often requires more attention and expertise than management can provide. Heckler Associates' proven strategies for corporate brand building offer thorough analysis of name change situations and provide recommendations for achieving success.
Heckler Associates' Naming Strategy Criteria
Name Uniqueness
Minimize previous associations and avoid relearning or unlearning. The ideal name is an empty vessel that receives, stores and protects all the meaning you develop.
Name Credibility
Judgment of appropriateness and believability in reference to fundamental presentation contexts.
Name Reproducibility
Can be easily spoken, written, spelled, read and heard.
Name Legibility
Ease of reproducibility in all communication media; immunity to noise factors, a measure of presence and impact.
Name Durability
Ability to withstand cultural and business modulations. Avoid trends.
Name Compatibility
Ease of use in close proximity to other fixed and reoccurring verbal and visual content.