There is a fascinating piece in today’s Times about the importance of creating an effective name for your company, brand or product. It focuses on Lexicon Branding, a Californian company which is responsible for names such as Pentium, BlackBerry and Febreze.
According to the company’s founder, David Placek (pictured), Lexicon’s core method involves ‘taking something that’s relevant and spinning it in an unexpected way. Unpredictable words get more attention by consumers in the marketplace. They begin to tell a story and tell it faster.’
The article also looks at the tricks which endow a word with special qualities. For example, using the letter B apparently makes a brand seem reliable while X makes a product, such as the Xbox, seem advanced.
The piece also touches on the importance of cross referencing any new name against existing names and running checks to ensure that your new product name doesn’t mean something inappropriate in other languages. Mondelez is the name of Kraft’s new snack food company. Apparently, it means something unprintable in Russian.
The Times piece is behind its firewall but Lexicon Branding has a webpage with links to all its press cuttings. It would make useful reading for any Vistage member who might be thinking of launching a new product or service.
