Today we’re diving a little more deeply into our process for creating names. This #tellthetruths video unpacks the first and most important of the major steps in the naming process: setting the STRATEGY.
Step 1: BUILDING BRAND NAMES – STRATEGY
We’re really interested to hear how people react to our approach, which is to create a pretty large number of strategic directions. We explore much more broadly than you would for other kinds of creative exercises within branding. We find that naming is really different.
This video originally appeared in LinkedIn
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TRANSCRIPT:
Hi guys, it’s Rebeca with BrandTrue and this video that I want to do today is about Step 1 of building brand names: it’s all about the STRATEGY! So in an earlier video that I’ll tag below, I talked about the 4 steps of what it takes, what the work is, to build a brand name. And in this video I want to unpack strategy.
So I’m a brand strategist, I’m all about strategy but the way I think about strategy for naming is a little different and maybe unorthodox so I’m interested to see what you guys think. So basically, for other elements of building a brand, of making your positioning, you really sort of need to understand exactly what you’re trying to express strategically.
With naming, I take a little bit broader view. And that’s because a name is a very small communication. It’s, you know, unless your name is, “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter”, the whole brand story isn’t going to be in the name and so it’s interesting to be sure to think about all the different things that your brand needs to express in the course of their story. Who is it for? But also, what is the benefit? What is actually on offer? What’s the emotional benefit of how people feel?
All these things are interesting to explore in going after a name. And if you’re too, too focused on a small footprint of the name, you’re not going to be able to get all of the ideas. There’s creativity that’s part of naming and there’s also kind of happenstance, just what do you come up with? What do you find? What are you able to clear? And so it’s a looser strategy and I don’t know if people are going to think, “Oh, sacrilege!” But that’s the approach we use and it’s worked pretty well for us. Let me know what you think. Bye!
