How To Create An Original Name For Your Brand

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by Aryeh Powers

Since creating Anticipate Marketing, I have had a couple of friends ask me to help them create a name for their business. To be sure, it’s not an easy process. The name you pick, and decide to build your brand with, is the name that you are most likely going to stick with, throughout the life cycle of your business or product. So it’s important that your name is a slam dunk from the outset.

So what goes into a slam dunk of a name for your business? Take a look at this simple check list below. It will help you in simplifying this process of creating your company name.

1.Clearly describe your business or product. Be as precise as you can. Think of what your elevator pitch would be (if you met someone in an elevator and had 30 seconds to describe your business or product, how would you describe it). You cannot move forward with planning the name of your business, until you know how to communicate what it is that your business will provide for consumers.

2. Understand your target audience’s association with your business or product. Let’s take energy drinks as your business and let’s say your target audience is college kids, perhaps your target audience associates your product with late nights studying for exams, staying awake during long lectures and/ or running a marathon. In the energy drink example, I would recommend that the business owner do research to determine what college kids would need an energy drink for on a regular basis and how they perceive the advantages of energy drinks.

3. Simplify the description of your product and think of sticky words that convey your value proposition. For example, if you created a healthier energy drink, then the SIMPLE description of your product would be “a healthy energy drink” and your value proposition would be that you offer a healthier alternative to energy drinks that are currently on the market. The thing is, you want to make the name sticky and memorable and not just a description. This is where you need to be creative. Think about synonyms for the word healthy. Here’s a few synonyms for both health and healthy, that I found at thesaurus.com:  active, athletic, fit, flourishing, fresh, full of life, good condition, hearty, husky, in good shape, lively, lusty, muscular, physically fit, potent, robust, safe and sound, shape, strong, stamina sturdy, tough, trim, unimpaired, tone, top form, vigor vigorous, virile, well being, wholeness.

4. Create a couple of names based on the check list and run them by your friends and colleagues to see which one is the real keeper. For the healthy energy drink example, here are a couple of ideas: Active Energy Drinks, Safe And Sound Energy Drinks, Virile Energy Drinks, Top Form Energy Drinks. One last point: Be open to suggestions. It’s hard to put yourself in the shoes of the consumer. Because you can’t predict the behavior and associations of your target audience, conducting market research and doing your best to understand your target audience should be your primary goal before you finalize the decision of your company or product name.

So there you have it folks. A broken down check list of essential factors when creating your brand name. It need not be that difficult. Go through the steps, but make sure that you approach the creation of your brand name with an open mind and appreciation for suggestions. Have fun!

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