Brand Architecture

Product Family Branding – Naming all the Components and Versions

Brand Architecture Development

You have brand design standards for buildings and products. Why not for names too?

Do all your product names look like they belong to the same family? Look like they come from the same seeds and locations. Are they all unique but similar in style? Legally clean? Is there a strategic road map for introducing new product names as you go forward without a major naming project?

And perhaps, more importantly, is there a clear organization and hierarchy, so that you impart the correct emphasis to your buying publics? At what level do you use legally defensible names, and when do you go for descriptors? And what short and sweet descriptors embody the right message? Short enough to be used without being abbreviated?

Are you naming a new product? Or are you really naming a new product line? And what about sibling products and parent brand names? Does there need to be some connection? Style? Tone?

Not only can Brighter Naming come up with new names for you, but we can also create a standard format and help advise you on how to structure your brand levels and names. We have studied this at length, have a lot of experience creating clean new architectures (or fixing old ones), and can leave you with a road map of future directions. It’s not easy, but with a lot of legal and common law searches, we can often find you a word or structure that gives you lots of room for growth, without reverting to meaningless abbreviations.

Component Naming

When your portfolio of products are named, how are you going to have a consistent architecture for all the component parts. Do the components look like siblings? Do they look like children of the same parent? Are they easily organized and referenced for price books and catalogs? For manufacturing, dealers and end users?

Or are they a left over hodgepodge from engineering, marketing and service? A proper component naming architecture can really help improve your efficiency and make you an easier company to do business with. But it doesn’t come automatically. We study and compare your names against great industry examples, then recommend possible architectures, before locking in on one final one that suits your company and brand personality best.

Conscious Naming Effort vs Evolution

So often, names in a company are based on history of groups and directions, or the size of the division, or the manager with the most clout, or the marketing guy who is hoeing his own row. Fine. But sooner or later it is costing you – if not in actual losses, then at least in sales confusion, master brand dilution and market growth. This problem can be especially acute in software companies, for example, where products are developed and released at a prolific rate, but the emphasis and target customer has shifted over time.

Brighter Naming is the only naming agency in the country headed by someone with two computer science degrees – and his innate systems analysis talents are a powerful organizer here. Especially now that he has years of people management experience to advise you on how to roll this out throughout the organization. Plus as the author of the Name Critic Column and NameAwards Blog he has studied many, many names over the years.

Not sure if your present name is OK or not? Why not have a professional name audit done first.

Already got a name in mind? Before you waste money on a lawyer, call us for a full name availability search report in 48 hours – including trademarks, common law marks, state registrations, international TM’s, close usages, domains, etc.

We shape our buildings, thereafter they shape us…..Churchill

Recent Naming Articles

Brand insider articles from an experienced marketing team.

Mar 2023: Pricing your naming project

Oct 2021: The devil is in the trademark details

Mar 2019:The Power and Value of a Trademark

Jan 2019:4 common branding mistakes

Oct 2018: You named it What?

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See his industry naming commentary (where he takes a critical look at names) via the blog on this site