Often, a potential customer’s first impression of a new product is driven by that product’s name. It’s important to get that right. Over my career, I’ve developed names for multiple products, and even a company. Sometimes the process went well; sometimes it did not! Based on these experiences I have developed a 9-step process that you can use to successfully pick and launch your next new product name.
1. Identify and Involve the Decision Maker
Knowing who will make the final decision about your new product name, and what they want, is key to your success. At a previous company, we hired a highly capable naming agency, they generated many wonderful names, and then the decision maker rejected all of them because he wanted something that sounded “Latin.”
So, I spent an hour with Google translate to generate new candidate names, one of which the decision maker said was “perfect.” In the end, we sent the agency a $30,000 check for work we didn’t use because we didn’t synch with the decision maker up front and we didn’t involve him in the process.
2. Develop a Creative Brief
The Creative Brief is a one-page document that defines your new name’s message, personality, style, and constraints. It is what you should always return to when generating, evaluating, and picking names.
(Pro Tip: make sure that the ultimate decision maker is involved in developing the Creative Brief and has signed off on the final version!)
Message
What do you want the name to communicate? What impression of the product do you want people to take away from the name? For example, if you want the product to come across as an “aggressive” solution to the customer’s problem, you should have “Bear” in the name, not “Kitty.”
Personality
How do you want your new name to come across? Should it be serious, playful, technical, sophisticated, street savvy, or…? As an example, which of these better connote a high-performance sports car: “Valkyrie” or “Cube?” (My apologies to Nissan…)
Style
What will the name “look” like? For example:
- Improper spellings – Flikr, TikTok, Tumblr
- Multiple words – Apple Computer
- Compound words – iPhone, Microsoft, Netflix, Walmart
- Not words – Nvidia, Twix, Xfinity
- Foreign – Avant, Zeus
Constraints
One example of a constraint is the need to follow precedent. If the previous generation product was called SuperProduct 4, then the next generation should probably be called SuperProduct5.
Another example of a constraint is if the name needs to (not) contain something, e.g. the new name must contain the phrase “AI,” like “OpenAI.”
Example
Here is the Creative Brief I wrote when naming my strategy and marketing consultancy, PeakPoint Solutions:
The LLC is a consulting company, initially focused on offering marketing and strategy services in the PNW, both a project basis and as fractional / interim leadership.
However, the LLC does want the ability to grow and expand, i.e. the name should NOT have words like:
- Cascades, Pacific, Northwest, Oregon, Portland
- Consulting, Marketing, Strategy
In contrast the name can contain non-specific umbrella terms, e.g. Solutions.
The name should be aspirational, it should point to delivered results that are up and to the right.
Other considerations:
- The name should carry some amount of gravitas. It can be whimsical in the sense that the name omits letters, e.g. Flikr, but the name itself should carry credibility.
- I am open to reference my love of the outdoors.
- The TLA / abbreviation needs to make sense and all of it needs to not be obscene or profane in any major language.
The web domain needs to be available
- The TLD does not need to be .com, e.g. it could be .biz, .pro…
3. Brainstorm the Long List
You want the most creative people you know involved in brainstorming your new name. For that, I encourage you to look beyond the marketing team. Some of the most creative people I worked with came from engineering and finance, and were relatively junior in rank.
Before your first brainstorming session send the Creative Brief to the team and ask them to independently come up with 10 – 20 names in at least three different directions. It’s good to get people thinking about names before they step into the meeting room and are swayed by social or hierarchical pressure. Also, encourage people to use Generative AI and Google in their brainstorming – after they have done some work on their own.
Keep your brainstorming sessions short, probably no more than a half hour. Stop when people run out of inspiration. Plan on having multiple sessions, several days apart – this gives people time to explore new directions based on inspiration from the last session.
While in the brainstorming session, the only conversation should be either “clarifying questions” or “encouraging comments.” Individuals should build on other’s ideas, not tear them down. “Evaluation” comes later and critiquing now will stifle creativity.
Brainstorming is an “unconstrained exercise” in that all proposed names are valid at this stage, even if another product already uses the name or the name is not consistent with your brand.
4. Narrow to the Short List
To come up with your short list of names you need to first figure out your decision-making process, i.e. who is making decisions about shortening the list and how? Are all team members voting, only the marketing team, or only the product manager? Is an executive involved…?
Once you have your decision-making process clear, you need to review your Creative Brief. That has to be your guide as you consider which names to cut and which to keep.
Don’t get attached to any single name at this point. Aim to shortlist at least three to five qualifying names so that you have the margin for multiple names to be knocked out during the vetting process.
(Pro tip: give each decision maker three votes instead of one. This helps people feel more engaged and allows dark horse names to emerge.)
5. Vet the Top Candidates
In this stage you are aiming to test that your shortlisted names are both available and appropriate.
Check for Availability
There are many different places to see if your shortlisted names are available:
- Google search – it is ok if someone else is already using your name, if they are not in a related business, e.g. Bear Tacos does not compete with Bear Spam Filters.
- Web domains – use a service like NameCheap to see if someone is already sitting on your new domain and how much it would cost to buy.
- Social domains – are there users already using your name for their handles?
- Trademark registries – are products using your name in the same or a different business?
- Corporate name databases – are companies, in your line of business or geographic location, already using your name?
Note that your legal team can help with vetting the name, especially when it comes to trademarks. You want to get that right.
Check for Appropriateness
To see if your shortlisted names are appropriate, you need to involve people from outside of your brainstorming group.
Here are a couple of things to check:
- Language – I have had names on my shortlist that sounded great in English but were obscene or otherwise problematic in other languages and cultures.
- Life Stage – people of different ages grew up with different sets of slang and expression, what sounds good to an early career team member may be misunderstood by a more senior leader.
- Culture – people with different lived experiences interpret words differently. Others may see problems with a name that you don’t. There is a strong value to broad diversity in your ideation, winnowing, and vetting processes.
The bottom line is that you need to test your new names with as many as people as possible. Of course, given time, cost, and confidentiality constraints you will likely be limited in how much testing you can do, but do what you can to maximize the vetting.
6. Select the Final Name
You should always take multiple names in to the final decision maker. There is not only the psychology of giving people a choice, but there is also the practical matter that at this point the name choice is moving from the Creative Brief’s guidelines to the more subjective realm of “what feels right.”
Be prepared to talk the decision maker through the team’s process to develop these finalists and let them know about the thought, philosophy, and vetting that went into each name. Providing context will always help the selection process.
Finally, know what your personal first choice is, and why. If the decision maker is torn between two options, you may have the opportunity to tip the scale…
7. Develop the Selected Name
Once you have the final name you need to get it ready to be rolled out broadly. This means both clearly defining and protecting the name.
Define the name
You need Brand Guidelines for your new name to educate your internal team about what the name is and how to use it externally. Your guidelines should clearly lay out what the name does (not) mean, what it is intended to communicate, and what is its origin story.
Also, the guidelines should talk about proper usage of the name, e.g. capitalization that needs to be followed (PeakPoint), acceptable abbreviations (IBM), and any severability constraints (can “corporation” or “LLC” after the name be dropped).
Note that the Brand Guidelines are an “internal only” document. The depth of information here, especially about the meaning and origin story, are not the types of things that are typically communicated externally.
Protect the name
First, decide if your name needs to be a “registered trademark” (with ®) or a “common law” trademark (with ™). If you need clear legal ownership and protection then you need to register your name, but that comes with a financial and time cost. Consult your IP lawyer on this question.
Second, secure all of the web domains and social media handles related to your name, even if you don’t plan to use them right now. The gold standard domain for businesses is “.com” but if someone else grabs that domain it could be quite expensive to get it back and you may be left with either a convoluted URL or a less intuitive top-level domain like “.pro” or “.biz.”
8. Roll-out Internally
Once you have your new product name defined and protected, you are ready to roll it out internally. You should always do this before a public launch because when the press release, ads, and emails go live your front-line team members need to be able to cogently explain to customers and the press what the name means, and why.
The Brand Guidelines that you developed earlier can be used here as a core part of your launch collateral.
9. Roll-out Externally
Now, finally, you’re ready to roll out your new product name publicly! Think about what needs to be communicated about your new name, to who, and how. Is there a story that needs to be told? Will PRs, a web page, social posts, and sales collateral be sufficient? Or, do you need longer formats like a conference keynote or a public webinar?
Whatever you do, be true to your new name, and follow those Brand Guidelines…
(Pro tip: a few days after the launch check in with your front-line teams to see how customers and partners are reacting to the name. Do you need to tweak how the name is presented and defined?)
Conclusion
Defining a new product name and rolling it out is hard work. But, it is worth the effort! I have taken great pleasure in hearing a new name be well received and widely used. Good luck naming your next product – I look forward to seeing some great new names hit the market!
If you would like help naming your next new product, please contact us here.
AI Usage:
- Research was aided by Google Search Labs | AI Overview
- I wrote all words in the text
- Anthropic Claude 3.0 Sonnet generated lists of textual edit suggestions. All acceptable edits were implemented by me, in my own words
- The post image was generated by Google Gemini