Naming that works: Put yourself in their shoes
By now we’ve all heard the jokes about the unfortunately named Apple iPad tablet computer. (We’ll leave it to you to fill in the punchline for the name of a hypothetical widescreen version.) It’s clear that the company was a bit tone-deaf when the name was chosen, exposing Apple to the kind of derisive humor usually reserved for Microsoft. The most common rhetorical question I’ve heard is “Were there any women in the room when they came up with this?”
What can you, as a brand manager, learn from Apple’s gaffe? The real lesson is deeper than “don’t come up with names that can be made the butt of jokes.” Rather, you need to think about your target audience and what they’ll respond positively to.
It’s human nature to gravitate to ideas that we personally find appealing, but we should never forget that when we come up with a name, we’re not creating it for ourselves. As a writer, I love wordplay and double entendre, but often that approach can produce a name that is too clever and likely to go right over the heads of the audience. It won’t “play in Peoria,” to borrow the old phrase… which itself may not mean anything to younger readers.
The point is that you should do whatever you can to imagine yourself as an actual member of your target audience. Endeavor to shed your preconceived notions, your background and the pop culture references that you respond to. Enlist as diverse a group of people as you can to comment on your work. Try to cover the entire spectrum of race, gender, politics, education, background, age and occupation… even those who lie outside the target group, because they may give you a point of view that you never would have considered.
Recently we went through a naming exercise here at BrandLogic for a new client, and once our creative team came up with a strong list of candidates we took one additional step: We called in one of our employees who happens to be in the target audience to comment. She gave us an invaluable perspective that helped to ground us in reality, resulting in the elimination of what many of us thought were good names and the addition of whole new ideas.
What’s your strategy for vetting your brand work? Do you actively seek other points of view? When someone comments, do you capture that feedback and use it to guide future work? Let us know!
Very interesting thoughts here. I fully support the notion about product names that speak to a broader audience, but not necessarily to yourself. Anyone who gets a job to create a name is usually a creative person, or someone who has some experience in these kinds of things. Strangely enough, those people are usually everyone but the audience the product was made for.
Like logos, names are also somewhat overrated and underrated at the same time. They *can* have a great impact on a product’s destiny (Apple), or simply be bland enough to not get in the way (Microsoft), or even be odd and make the product succeed none the less (Google).
In the case of iPad, it’s a bland name, a name that hurts no one and only creatives and geeks are noting its lack of inspiration. Surely, we think, we would have come up with something more exciting.
But the real question is if that would have shaped the product’s destiny. Because with the iPad, Apple didn’t release just another product, not even just another product line. It kicked off a chisel that may well create an avalanche that has a great impact on our way of life. Think about it: this is not like the invention of the phone, or the cell phone, or an iPhone. This is about doing what you did on a desk, *everywhere but* the desk. Using the iPad on a desk will become the unnatural thing to do. Using tablet computers everywhere else, the 90% of our lives that were not tied to a desk, will become the natural thing to do.
In that perspective, iPad is just right. It’s a simple name, like that baby they called John, when nobody knew he would write a song one day called “Imagine”, long after his rock band had changed music history for good.
February 10, 2010
I think you have a good point about the iPad’s destiny not being particularly linked to its name. Apple has such strong brand awareness that it doesn’t need to create a clever, compelling names.
However, I don’t necessarily agree that the name is harmless to the brand. However lowbrow, the obvious link to feminine hygiene products has made Apple the butt of water cooler jokes for millions of potential customers. That’s taken a bit of shine off the Apple, so to speak.
I doubt there will be any long-term impact on sales, provided the product captures the public’s imagination. But a brand as well-regarded as Apple is compelled to adhere to very high standards indeed: its high standing makes it all the more vulnerable to marketing missteps.
February 11, 2010
This step should be mandatory for any company of any size. Showing name ideas around to even as few as three people is always so insightful. It is fast, easy and cheap, too. There is simply no good reason for companiesto fail to take the step you suggest.
I remember back almost ten years now when PriceWaterhouseCoopers became “Mondays”. And no one thought to ask if what associations that day of the week had? ?!!
I believe the iPad will have a very cramped future with that name–sorry, had to go there.
February 22, 2010
I seriously doubt if one single sale will be made or lost by virtue of the product name iPad. You lose sight of the fact that people buy compelling value propositions, not catchy names. Apple is probably the preeminent company in the world at creating compelling value. One look at the name and there is no doubt whose product it is. The product will win because of its inherent excellence and the sure knowledge of quality engendered in the Apple brand. The feminine hygiene analogy is the idle working of small minds that lose sight of the compelling value of the product and the user experience. How about a similar analysis of the name Microsoft…
March 17, 2010