Would you drink a wine called “Herbacious Fruit?”
Telling Stories, Sending Telegrams
While I believe that a brand’s strategic needs should drive the type of brand name they choose, this #tellthetruths video shares some of my recent thoughts about how the category a name competes in will also drive whether the brand needs a cut and dried, descriptive name or something more evocative.
This video originally appeared in LinkedIn.
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What Makes A Brand Story A Story?
TRANSCRIPT:
Hey, everyone. It’s Rebeca with BrandTrue. and I want to talk a little bit about very different sorts of brand names. Sometimes they’re a telegram. They’re like, “Here I am! I’m descriptive!” And sometimes they’re more of a romantic, evocative, telling-a-story sort of name. And I often talk about the fact that it’s the strategy that’s going to lead you to one or another. If you’re, say, something that’s really new to the world, and people don’t know what it is, you probably want to describe it in a more straightforward way, and you probably want that telegraphic name, whereas if the category is crowded, and people are already very familiar with it, you probably stand out by doing more than describing, but actually getting romantic and creating emotion.
Well, all that still stands, but it struck me recently that the category itself can be driving that, as well. Certain categories, and I’m thinking specifically of image, lifestyle categories… fashion, beauty, spirits, …that what you’re selling is story. And so, story names, names that are maybe surnames, so that you start to talk about the people involved or names that just somehow start to draw you in emotionally, they’re not only probably what you want strategically, I also think that the alternative, a descriptive name, is kind of grim.
Can you imagine describing a wine brand by attributes? You know, “Notes of Cherry” is not a name for a wine that anyone would pick up, right? So, anyway… I was just geeking out on names, as I do and thinking through that and really excited to discuss it with my fellow name geeks and get into a little conversation about that. Let me know what you think about that hypothesis. Thanks. Bye!
