Product naming

Process of deciding a brand name for a product

In marketing, product naming is the discipline of deciding what a product will be called, and is very similar in concept and approach to the process of deciding on a name for a company or organization. Product naming is considered a critical part of the branding process, which includes all of the marketing activities that affect the brand image, such as positioning and the design of logo, packaging and the product itself. The process involved in product naming can take months or years to complete. Some key steps include specifying the objectives of the branding, developing the product name itself, evaluating names through target market testing and focus groups, choosing a final product name, and finally identifying it as a trademark for protection.

Brand names typically fall into several different categories.

AFLAC, IBM, M&M (for Forrest Mars and Bruce Murrie).

Names created by taking parts of words and putting them together: Nabisco (National Biscuit Company).

Fun to say, and particularly memorable: YouTube, Piggly Wiggly.

Use the idea for one thing and apply it to another: Caterpillar, Reebok.

Descriptive names describe to the product a characteristic: Toys R Us, General Motors, Cartoon Network, American Airlines, Burger King, Holiday Inn, Pizza Hut, and Google Maps.

Names don't have to be just a word or two: Seven for All Mankind, I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!, The Boring Company.

Invoke a vivid image that alludes to a brand benefit: London Fog, Amazon.

Use the name of a founder or founder family member: Barneys, Hewlett Packard, and Wendy's.

Chose a name associated with company/product location: eBay for Echo Bay (a fictional place as well as the shortened form of "Echo Bay Technology Group," the name of eBay founder Pierre Omidyar's consulting company, according to the List of company name etymologies), Fuji for the tallest mountain in Japan, Cisco for San Francisco.

For a name with personality: Yahoo!, Cracker Jack. For example, Yahoo comes from Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, where Yahoo is a legendary being with the following characters: rude, unsophisticated, uncouth. Later the name Yahoo was popularized as an bacronym for Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle.

Base the name on ingredients: Clorox for chlorine plus sodium hydroxide, Pepsi for the digestive enzyme pepsin.

When two companies merge into one, sometimes both names are kept: ExxonMobil, Cadbury Schweppes, GlaxoSmithKline.

Use alternative spellings for common sounds: 2(x)ist, Krispy Kreme.

Use a founder's nickname: Adidas aka Adolf Dassler, Haribo Hans Riegel Bonn, Kinkos.

A completely new made up word: Kodak, Verizon, Mimex.

Use a sound associated with a product function or other brand idea: Twitter, Meow Mix.

Create a character or adopt an existing personage: Green Giant, Nike, Midas Mufflers.

Name is a combination of two (or more) words or morphemes, and their definitions, into one new word: Travelocity, Pinterest.

A consideration companies find important in developing a product name is its "trademarkability". Product name trademarks may be established in a number of ways:

In many countries, including the United States, names can be used as trademarks without formal registration through first use or common law—simply to protect an established product's name and reputation. Product names can be formally registered within a state, with protection limited to that state's borders. In the United States, a federal trademark registration is filed with the USPTO and offered protection for as long as the mark is in use. The preeminent system for registering international trademarks in multiple jurisdictions is the Madrid system. In addition, protecting a trademark is just as important as the initial process of registration. Trademark rights are maintained through actual use of the trademark, and will diminish over time if a trademark is not actively used. Companies need to consider whether they can own a name in the digital realm. Securing a domain name, particularly with the globally recognized dot com extension, is critical for some companies. It has also become increasingly important for firms to interact with their audience through social media websites. Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram all have procedures for acquiring a name on their sites. In modern communication, the trademark is just the start of owning a name.

Because English is widely viewed as a global language, with over 380 million native speakers, many international trademarks are created in English. Still, language differences present difficulties when using a trademark internationally.

Many companies have stumbled across the importance of considering language differences in marketing new products. Audi named their hybrid models e tron, meaning "excrement" in French. The Mitsubishi Pajero SUV is called Montero in Spanish speaking countries as pajero is a commonly used as a pejorative to mean "wanker". Reebok named a women's sneaker Incubus. In medieval folklore, an incubus was a demon who ravished women in their sleep. The Honda Fitta was, according to a popular urban legend, renamed Jazz after discovering that fitta is Norwegian and Swedish slang for the female genitals. A drink in Japan called Calpis, when pronounced, sounds like cow piss. The product is marketed in North America under the Calpico brand. Bimbo is a Mexican baking conglomerate; in English the term describes a woman who is physically attractive but is perceived to have a low intelligence or poor education.