Names Matter: The Challenge of Naming Your Brand

Do names really matter? They do if you’re involved in trademarks, domains, or brand protection. And they’ve become extremely important in today’s complex trademark landscape.

Names are a face to the world. They’re often the first thing you read or hear about something new and they can act as a critical differentiator in a crowded market.

Anyone who’s ever worked on a naming project knows it is a challenging exercise. Although it normally begins as fun and creative, it quickly progresses toward finding answers to these more difficult questions:

• Is it easily understood?
• Is it unique?
• Is it acceptable globally?

Let’s take a look at some of the most common naming challenges — several of them might be familiar to you:

The naming process is unstructured

The inevitable brainstorming session, accompanied by a white board, feels creative to many, but it’s far from scientific.

Marketers always fall in love too fast

Marketing people often get attached to names that have absolutely no chance of becoming registered trademarks. Once they’re in love, it’s hard to get them to fall out of love. (Love hurts!)

Lawyers are the bad guys

Lawyers are frequently the ones that have to say “no” to a name when it’s unavailable and/or won’t make it through the trademark clearance process. And they usually aren’t able to help marketers find close alternatives.

It takes forever

Naming projects often take more than a year to complete, particularly in certain industries, like pharmaceuticals.

It’s expensive

Large companies might spend into the high six figures if they use an external naming consultancy.

Siloed decisionmaking

Deciding on a name is often scattered across several parts of an organization, like marketing, product management, legal, etc.

Everything Corsearch does has to do with names, so we’re moving beyond helping you clear and protect names by developing a new tool that brings much-needed structure to the process of identifying good name candidates. This exciting new solution will give marketers visibility into name clearance likelihood and give lawyers the ability to suggest names that marketing will like.

If you’re attending the INTA Annual Meeting in Barcelona, visit the Corsearch booth (A1) for a preview of how Corsearch plans to help you in the naming process and enable seamless collaboration between marketing and legal

For those of you not attending INTA, register here to ensure you’ll be among the first to be notified about the launch of this exciting new integrated naming and clearance solution.