Category: basic naming questions

New Yorker’s Naming and Our Review »

It’s always exciting to see a thoughtful article about brand naming in a mainstream, American staple like the New Yorker. The article, “Famous Names: does it matter what a product is called?” written by John Colapinto in the October 3rd, 2011 edition was certainly a fascinating read from beginning to end. Tools like Mind Maps [...]

Naming philosophies from the Naru, continued. »

The Naru (Naming Guru) has emerged from the naming reflecting pool to finish sharing his/her branding perspectives from earlier this month. 5b.) Literal / descriptive names are better than emotional names when developing specific product names underneath a family brand. While emotional, short & snappy brand names should establish strong connections with consumers (e.g., Northface, [...]

Naming philosophies from the Naru (Naming Guru): »

One of the special educational services NameStormers offers is access to the sage naming philosophies of the revered Naru (Naming Guru). (The identity of the Naru is protected so he/she can go about day-to-day life without being chased down the street by marketers and branding strategists demanding one-on-one audiences.) 1) Think like a customer, not [...]

The Rise of Private Labels & The Role of Strong Brand Names »

“Consumers are buying private label food and drink products in greater numbers, typically because these products represent better value” (Mintel, The Private Label Food and Drink Consumer, Dec. 2010). But, is this causation or correlation? Are consumers knowingly buying private labels in larger quantities because of their perceived value, or is something else driving the [...]

Managing Expectations »

  The Harvard Business Review published an article this month discussing two possible approaches when naming next generation products: 1. Brand-Name Continuation (or) 2. Brand Name Change. Callaway Company launched its first Big Bertha driver in 1995 and then chose the brand-name continuation strategy: following with Great Big Bertha and then Biggest Big Bertha. This [...]

The Real U: brand authenticity pays dividends »

“Consumers are not buying based on price alone,” led a recent article from Brandweek. Personally, price is always a factor for me, but only decisive when all other things are equal. I agree – “there is a price-value formula consumers use to calculate brand differences” when deciding which brands to buy. Otherwise Chi straighteners ($100) [...]

The Naming Hot Pot »

One of the biggest naming challenges can be in transnational markets, where a myriad of languages are spoken and customs are practiced. Besides being sure that you don’t recommend something in English that will offend somebody speaking Cantonese, there are fascinating linguistic nuances that both reveal a lot about what goes into a name and [...]

Is Subliminal Meaning Just All in Our Heads? »

Man: “How was I supposed to know that?” Woman: “You should just KNOW!” This refrain repeats in household arguments frequently. I feel qualified in making this observation, as I’m the woman in my household, and have had to bite my lip several times to circumvent this particular script. Typically, I’m not a fan of making [...]

Good Street Cred Means a Strong Brand »

Why does every brand seek the role of the “popular kid?” Is it because the popular brands attract the most interest and consumers? Like the popular clique in high school, they drive the gossip and news that everyone actually wants to discuss. However, this seems counter to general brand strategy – much less good parenting. [...]

Less Is Not Always More »

I was reading the New Yorker and came across an intriguing article about a fashion blogger prodigy, Tavi. She’s a fourteen-year-old girl who lives in the suburbs of Chicago and has quickly risen to become one of the fashion-elite – all based on the fresh content, creative humor, and eerily encyclopedic knowledge of fashion history [...]

  • HealthYes!

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  • Raving Fans

  • Empowered Imaging Partners, LLC struggled with its own internal marketing group for 10+ weeks to coin the brand name that would launch our national Preventive Health Screening brand. When we eventually gave up and turned to Mike Carr and NameStormers, we were impressed with their professionalism and process orientation. HealthYES.com was the final brand chosen out of at least 3 viable alternatives provided by NameStormers. Without reservation, we recommend NameStormers as 'the company to turn to' for naming.
    Craig Lindley and Dale Wood - Co-Founders of Empowered Imaging Partners, LLC - now HealthYES.com
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  • I must underscore what an absolute pleasure it was to work with you during this entire project. Your methodical, timely, and resourceful approach to educating me on how a new name affects a company, and the steps you so painstaking address to make the transition a seamless one, were outstanding. Each time I needed to contact you to get direction or clarification, you responded with immediate and informative action. You are the consummate professional and a real pleasure to work with.
    Dorian Stern - Director of Marketing, Logicare
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  • I can't say enough about how well you handled what would have been a very difficult if not impossible branding exercise for us to do in-house. The NameStormers brought an excellent level of creativity, objectivity and a fresh look at what we live with everyday, and that is just what we needed. At the beginning of this project, I had my doubts about our ability to come up with a brand name in just 3 weeks and clearly without your help, we wouldn't have been able to do it. You really made my job easy.
    Kate Strong - Manager, Marketing Communications - Lightbridge
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  • I want to thank you very much for your team's effort on this project. You all worked very quickly and gave us excellent direction. I am sure many hours were spent in developing the many name lists you presented us. Your added value enabled us to move forward with a name consumers preferred over the prior internal name. I look forward to working with your company in the future!
    Brand Category Manager - A Major Global Tire Company
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  • Mike, Thanks for the quick turn around time. I appreciate all you have done to help us with name, logo and tagline. Some great work!
    Rob Greenbaum - Senior Vice President - Marketing - Nationstar, formerly Centex Home Equity
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  • Our success with our name change and branding has been phenomenal. I couldn't be more pleased with how it turned out. I am ecstatic over it. Our experience in working with NameStormers has been so good let's just call them again and let them handle this next project for us.
    Bill Macey - CEO of Valtera, formerly Personnel Research Associates
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  • I wanted to thank you and the NameStorming team for your great effort in helping me find a name for the company and our first product...starting a new business is quite a sizeable undertaking so knowing a competent team was tending to the name issues was a relief. We love the (company) name. We are also going to use the product name Acquis for a family of internet-and-otherwise commerce software packages. It really was a pleasure working with you. I look forward to NameStorming in the future.
    Tom Dowdell - Senior Software Developer - Intuitive Edge