Posts Tagged ‘product naming’

We here at Agave Lab kick out a lot of products and, just like kids, they all need names.  So here is a little how-to based on our experience.  And remember, some companies charge millions of dollars to come up with some of the most bone-headed names so, take this with a grain of salt.  It may be worth exactly what you’re paying for it.  With that disclaimer, here goes:

1. Don’t think about it too much. As long as it’s not confusing, obnoxious, or overly-long any name will do.  Sprint, Google, Apple – these are just words.  It doesn’t need to “sell” the product – it only needs to be easy to remember and clear.  Simple is best.

2. No tricky or creative spellings. Kreative Kwality Pharmacy, etc. may seem like a cute idea but you’re going to drive your customers Ka-razy when they try to find you.  And, unless you can own it, you’ll be driving a lot of your traffic to the site that owns the obviously-spelled alternative.  www.creativequalityfarmacy.com will thank you but it does little to help your business.

3. The domain name has to be available.  Okay.  So this one is obvious but you should think of other places you might want to host: – a Facebook game or Fan page, a LinkedIn profile, a supporting blog, etc..

4. A made up nonsense name is often nice (google, snapple, etc.).  It should be something fun to say and, if it evokes some theme or feeling that’s connected to your product, bonus points!

5. A descriptive name is good too. It involves less marketing as the name itself functions as marketing.  However, it’s harder to find the available domains and it’s often harder to trademark than nonsense words.

6. A combination of 4 and 5.  Something like “Facebook”  Not really a word but I’m thinking “faces, profiles, etc. and a book or a collection of something”.  It works.

7. Generally, the more people involved in the process, the worse the name is.  I’m not sure why this is the case but it always seems to be true.  I think that people tend to seek safety and consensus which often means that you get combinations of boring (safe) bits of names that are stuck together (consensus).  Sometimes this is unavoidable but be aware of it.

8. Name it, forget about it, then look at again the next day.  After a few hours of shouting words at a white board our brains tend to turn into mush.  It’s at that stage that some downright weird and dumb names start to seem reasonable.  We’ve landed on a name late in the day, only to come in the next morning, to a something really atrocious.  I find that the best names come to you when you’re not really actively thinking about it too hard.  I make it a habit to write down one or two names, off the top of my head, per day. At the end of the week, I gather then up, throw away 80% of them, and then bounce the survivors off the other folks in the office.

A use case:  we had decided to name our iPhone recipe application – iHungry.  Miraculously, the domain and the name in the app store was open.  We created the assets, the supporting website, press release, video demo, etc. etc.  but we didn’t think that we could claim the name on the iTunes app store until we had something to submit.  You know the rest of the story – between the time we landed on the name and the submitted the app, someone released a crappy product called iHungry.  There was anger, rending of garments, shaking of fists, etc. but the net result is that we had to pick a new name right away.  We had a few hardcore, full company, panic sessions where we tried to force a name out – nothing.  But we all just put it in the backs of our minds, took the pressure off, and some really good names started popping up over the next few days.  We finally settled on Tastebud which, looking back, is a better name than iHungry anyway.