TODAY'S ARTICLE: WHAT’S IN A NAME

WHAT’S IN A NAME

Creap coffee creamer is a big seller in Japan, and Bimbo bread is extremely popular in Mexico, but people in English-speaking countries would be unlikely to buy these products. Why? Because their names have unfortunate meanings in English. As companies go global, it is becoming increasingly important to find brand names that can travel from country to country.
According to Bridget Ruffell, a director of The Brand Naming Co., which specializes in creating brand names for clients, finding the right name for an international brand is expensive, time-consuming and full of difficulties. In addition to the problems of meaning and pronunciation, all names have to be legally registered, which involves long and expensive searches to make sure that they have not already been taken by another company.

          

Finding the right product name and avoiding the wrong ones is so important that The Brand Naming Co. has created a “black museum” of products with names that make them virtually unsellable in English-speaking countries. For instance, there’s “Nuclear”, a brand of clothes whitener in Spain. The Brand Naming Co. also cautioned about a Turkish cookie called “Bum” and a Mexican beer called “Nude”, although consumers in Ankara and Mexico City told they had never heard of those products.
Companies from English-speaking countries that want to sell their products in non-English-speaking countries also have a lot of problems finding good product names. The sounds R and L, for instance, are often confused among some speakers of Asian languages. Jonathan Mercer, managing director of Brand Guardians, a firm that specializes in creating brand names, said companies have to be careful to avoid names with unsuitable meanings.
One of the most famous stories about a brand-naming problem involves an American car. The marketing department of Chevrolet decided to name their new car “Nova”. They thought that they’d found a good name. “Nova” means “star” in Latin. However, in Spanish, the two words no va mean “doesn’t go”, which is not a very good name for a car.
There is more than one way to find a name for a new product. Sometimes, to avoid the problems that choosing a real word might cause, companies actually make up a word that (they hope) does not exist in any language. One very successful made up name is “Kodak”. It was chosen because it is pronounceable by people who speak many different languages. However, even when a company invents a name, it can still have name problems. For example, a number of years ago, Esso Oil Company wanted a new name for their gasoline that would be acceptable all over the world. After spending a lot of time and even more money, they came up with “Exxon”. Unfortunately, it didn’t work well in Japan. The Japanese pronounce it “Eki-son”, which sounds like the Japanese phrase meaning “loss of profit”.
Because English is now a global language, companies sometimes choose to use simple English words that describe their new product. A well-known example of this kind of naming technique is the “Walkman”. The Sony company chose this name for its personal stereo because it describes the product- you can use it to walk and listen to music at the same time.
It can take a long time to find the right name for a new product. First, a company hires a group of creative people to brainstorm a list of possible names. This list may have as many as 100 names on it. Then they often ask consumers to choose the names that they like the best. This technique can have surprising results. A few years ago a French publishing company was going to publish a new series of English-Language text books. Until they could think of a name for the series, they called it “Method Orange” (like calling a product “Brand X). When the publishers sent their list of possible names to consumers, one of them added this name to the list. To everyone’s surprise, it was the most popular name chosen by the consumers, and the series “Method Orange” was born.
When a company has found a name that consumers seem to like, the naming process is still not over. They must then research the name to make sure that it is not the name of another product. They usually choose the best three or four names so that they can be certain of finding one that works. This research takes a long time because each name must be researched in every country. For example, if you wanted to name a laundry detergent “Fresh”, in addition to searching the names of laundry soap in each country, you would also have to look at the names of other types of products that you think might have that name. A search can cost $500 per name per country.