PART I: Pre-Planning Sets the Stage

With the great proliferation of brands and products and growth of worldwide marketing, product naming has become a more difficult task than ever. Some turn to outside firms that specialize in product naming, others turn to their advertising agencies for help, and still others go it alone and work to develop good names in house.

No matter which course you take, however, there are a number of steps that you should take before the arduous task of naming (a subject that will be explored in the second part of this two part article) begins. First, it is very important that you have agreement among marketing team members about the critical elements of the product and how it will be marketed. If a complete marketing plan for the product has been developed, many of the following questions will already have been answered. If not, it is doubly important that they all be asked and answered.

The following questions should be answered before you begin searching for names, and should be revisited when tentative names are selected. These questions become the criteria against which names can be judged and compared.

1. What is your company's mission or statement of purpose, its vision and its statement of values? Does the product's division or group have its own mission statement?
As with all marketing activities, it is tough to do a good job unless you firmlyunderstand who your company is, what it stands for and where it's going.

2. Who are the target customers for the product? Who will your channel partners be and what various forms of distribution will you use? Who are your end customers or users—both demographically and psycho-graphically.
Clearly, product names have to be appropriate for the customers that will purchase them. The response to the name by channel members, who may have different perceptions than your target customers, can influence their effectiveness in representing your product.

3. How would a buyer or consumer describe the product in his/her own terms?
Having knowledge of the product, your company and your industry may be a disadvantage since you may not see the product the same way as your potential customers. Make very sure you are objective and think about those less well informed than you.

4. What makes the product unique? How is it differentiated from others in your company and from those of your competition?
In Marketing 101 you learned about the need to have unique selling propositions to make your product stand uniquely apart from your competition. The name can certainly be one of the marketing mix variables to help you do that. A clear understanding of your product's uniqueness, however, will help assure that the name chosen is appropriate.

5. Why would a buyer or consumer buy the product? What pain does it ease, problem it solves, satisfaction it gives?
Being unique may not be enough to get a buyer motivated to buy your product. Clearly state the reasons why a buyer would chose your product.

6. List other product names in your department, division and company.

• Is it important that the product name have any association to any other product or family of products?
• Is it important to avoid any connection to other products?

7. Who are the competitors and what are the names of their products that are or may be competitors for this product?
To clearly differentiate your product from competitors' it is necessary to have a full understanding of their products with their respective strengths and weaknesses.

8. Should the name strongly differentiate your product from others? If not, why not?
Sometimes having an association or similarity with existing products can be an advantage (as long as you are not infringing on their trade names and trademarks), and sometimes it is best to be as far as possible from associating with them.

9. What is the product positioning desired for this product? (E.g., high tech, low cost, status, image, high quality, value, etc.)
Because names carry many connotations and help position the product, it is very important to have clearly thought through the positioning you hope to achieve with the product.

10. Describe how the product will actually be used by the end user.
The actual use of the product may seem obvious, but think through how the product is intended to be used and also think of other ways it might be used. Will the name have any impact on either?

11. Describe how the product will be merchandised by the company and any channel members.
While the entire marketing plan for the product may not be completed at the time you are trying to name it, you should at least have a general idea of how it will be advertised, promoted and merchandised. Is the name consistent with the way in which you will promote it.

12. Are there marketing campaigns or themes which currently exist or are planned for other products into which this product will be marketed?
Most products do not stand in isolation. Consider how the marketing of other products will impact this product and vice versa.

13. Describe the overall objectives and goals for this product. What are the sales and the market share goals of this product?
While sales and share goals in themselves may not impact the name, other less tangible goals could be impacted. It also goes without saying that the greater the sales and the greater the market share planned will dictate the time and resources spent in naming the product.

14. Should the name connote any particular feeling or emotion to the user/buyer? Are there any emotions or feelings that should be avoided?
Many people identify with product and brand names and they become a part of their personality. Clearly understanding the kind of emotive impact you would like on your customer can help guide the development of names.

15. Will the product ever be marketed internationally? Will it be marketed locally to the black or Hispanic market or any other ethnic markets?

Today more than ever it is important to consider the various markets to which a product will be marketed. Because ethnic markets have become very important in building brands, it is especially important to become sensitive to them.

16. How will the pricing for your product compare with others of the company's and with those of competition?
Pricing is an important variable in product positioning. Understanding the price position may help in focusing on names.

17. What principal media will be used to promote the product—print, video, audio, multi-media?

Names may be interpreted differently when seen in print, heard aurally, and pronounced orally.

18. Many products are given nicknames by other company personnel, distribution channel partners and even by end users. Do similar products have nicknames, and if so what are they? Is it likely that whatever name you give the product will be shortened by people in actual use?

Whether you plan for it or not, others may call your product differently than you first intended. "Coca-Cola" quickly became "Coke." Be sure to think through all of the possible ways in which people may interpret your product.

Once you have answered these questions, you will be half way to getting a great name for your new product.

Part II: Seven Steps to Follow in Product Naming

After having a thorough understanding of your product, how it will be used, your target market and your overall objectives, you are now ready to tackle the creative but disciplined task of developing and validating product names.

Product naming requires both the left and right sides of the brain. On the one hand it requires intuition and creativity with lots of free thinking, but on the other it calls for great attention to detail and careful discipline to avoid problems and unnecessary cost. Here are our steps for successful product naming—again, after having very thoroughly laid the groundwork.

1. Develop Tentative Lists
Naming strategies will vary some, depending on whether or not you are developing names for new brands, new product lines or additions to existing product lines.

Obviously, developing new brands requires much more careful and extensive planning than line additions. Developing new brands, for example, should definitely have top management involvement and may include the use of outside resources both in developing branding and marketing strategies and in developing new names. Product line extensions, on the other hand, may appropriately be delegated to product managers and their supervisors and most often will be done internally.

In most cases, the process will begin, following appropriate strategic discussions and goal setting, with the development of tentative lists. Having set the boundaries through careful pre-planning can control and direct brainstorming without limiting creativity.

• Typically develop a list of 20 to 30 names using both internal and external sources.
  
  If the project is not confidential, customer and channel member suggestions can be helpful. Employee suggestions and contests can also generate good names if the process is carefully monitored. If you involve resources outside your department, it is very important to state that you may or may not use any of the suggestions given and carefully thank participants whether or not you use their suggestions.
  
  
• Next, prioritize the names. One easy way is to ask your team individually to rank their preferences. An even better way is to ask individual to indicate their preference between just two choices, and continue substituting a new potential name for the less favored of the pair until they are all reviewed.
  
  
• With the top 4 to 5 choices, consider all of the strategic implications of the names and review them against your initial screening criteria developed in the planning stage. When adding to lines of existing products, consider the impact on existing products as well as the new names.

2. Begin Preliminary Research (or, What to Do Before Calling Your Attorney)
Before calling your attorney, there are a number of steps you can take to save time and hefty legal fees. Here are some recommended steps:

• Research your preferred name(s) on the Patent and Trademark Office website. Click on "Search" and you will be able to enter your name to see if others are using it. A site that is a little easier to use is Name Protect. In either case, you will need to give yourself a little education in trademark classes to see if there are conflicts in categories relevant to your product. Also, be sure to enter your name with various spellings, with and without hyphens, etc., to see if there are similar names.
  
  
• Next, do a domain name search, not only because you may want to have a website for your new product, but also to see if there are others marketing products under your name or a similar one. Go to Register.com or to Network Solutions to check your name.
  
  
• For a new business or brand, you might also want to see if there are any company names using your tentative selection. You can visit the Secretary of State's office in your home state and those in Delaware and Nevada to see if anyone has registered your name as a company name.
  
  
• Last but not least, enter your name in a few popular search engines—Google,
  MSN, Yahoo!, etc. Read the resulting listings, at least on the first few pages, to see how others may be using your name.
  
  
• The final step in preliminary research is to determine meanings of your name in foreign languages. While we'll get more into this later, you might try a site like Free Translations. Enter your name and then have it translated into Spanish, French and other languages where you think you may someday market. Once you have the translations, then reverse the process and see how the name translates back into English. Make sure to enter all of the secondary definitions if something pops up.

3. Call Your Attorney
Once your name(s) has/have passed all of the hurdles listed above, it is time to call your trademark attorney to have a comprehensive search done. Skilled attorneys will work with you on class designations, alternate spellings and other factors that could create future problems. You might also check (and consider registering) names representing shortened pronunciations that may be used when referring to your product. A comprehensive search may cost US$ 250 to 350 per name.

If you plan to market your product in other countries, you may wish to have searches conducted in those countries as well. Because the process can get expensive, start with those countries where you plan to sell either now or in the future.

Once your attorney has completed a comprehensive search and counseled you on the best choices, then you can ask him/her to file trademark applications for you in the most appropriate countries.

There are Internet sites and other do-it-yourself trademark registration services, but we would strongly caution their use. Having an experienced attorney can be well worth the fees.

One note, you may use the designation ™ to indicate your use of the name as a trademark, but you should not use the ® designation until the trademark is actually registered with the Patent and Trademark Office.

4. Work with Graphic Designers
Unless your name is a line extension with graphic standards already set, it is a good idea to work with your design team to make sure the name is presented in the best possible way to create the image and merchandise the product as you would like. Consider all of the ways in which the name will be used. Determine typestyles and colors, and decide whether or not the name should be developed into or in conjunction with a logotype.

Once you have developed the standards for use, it is a wise idea to develop a stylebook, so everyone in your organization always uses the name in exactly the same way to build brand consistency.

5. Conduct Informal Primary Research
Before spending a great deal on formal research, we suggest you do as much informal research as time allows.

• Present the name and graphic treatments to your business associates. Show it to some with the logic of why you did what you did, and to others with no explanation and see how both groups react to it. If the later group says, "I don't get it," you have some additional work to do.
  
  
• If not confidential, present it to key customers to gauge their reactions. Do not overly sell the concepts, however, since you do not want to prejudice their initial responses.
  
  
• Informal focus groups with cross sections of potential customers or users can also yield valuable information, but be wary of placing too much importance on the results if it is done in an informal, unstructured way.
  
  
• Send the name and graphic treatments to your international agents, distributors and possibly customers in other countries. Check to make sure that the name in other languages and in other countries conveys the meaning you would like it to have. Again, be a little cautious because your middle-aged distributor may not be aware of the hip slang used by twenty-somethings. There are many cases where marketers unknowingly presented a product whose name translated into an obscenity in another language.
  
  
• Finally, but not to be dismissed, trust your instincts. One must always be cautious in bringing their own beliefs to marketing decisions, since most often we do not represent all of the customers who may be targets for the product. At the same time, however, if you know your market and your customers and have had lots of experience in the business, your judgments should be pretty sound. If your "gut" speaks, you should at least listen.

6. Conduct Formal Research
The decision on whether or not to conduct formal research will be based on several factors. Perhaps the most important is the amount of financial risk you will have in naming the product. If the future of your company or tens of millions in sales hang on the value of the name, you must be much more careful in its selection. You would hate to invest untold sums in product identification, packaging, advertising, merchandising and other brand building activities only to learn that your potential customers are turned off by the name or that it is confusingly similar to someone else's. In general, the more at risk, the more careful you must be.

7. Finally, Pray There Are No Changes
Because the naming process takes time and because there are lots of other people developing new products and services all the time, someone may be concurrently working on the same name as you are and you may not discover that fact until you are way into the process. If so, take your licks and don't be afraid to start over.

Yes, all of this is a great deal of work, but consider the possible costs on the downside and the benefits on the plus side. The Business Week/Interbrand 2005 annual study of the world's most valuable brands indicated that the value Coca-Cola was nearly US$ 70 billion. A high percentage of that is due to the Coca-Cola name.

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Jim Twerdahl is managing director of James S. Twerdahl & Associates—VMG Capital, consultants in branding and marketing strategies. Lee Shaeffer is managing director of PLM Associates, consultants specializing in product development and lifecycle management. Together they teach a seminar in Effective Product Management at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California.