Inspiration for a new name - Häagen-Dasz

Which name should we choose? This is the question that unites newborn babies and conceived business ideas. And the name is by no means insignificant, neither for people nor brands. For the former, it reveals something about the person's social affiliation, age, geographical location and ethnicity. But it can also, deep down in the subconscious, to some extent control your personal choices. It is interesting to observe when the career choice in many cases matches the proper name. According to NYtimes columnist David Brooks, Lawrence frequently reappears as a personal name among American lawyers. The same goes for Dennis among dentists, a name that can be phonetically confused with dentist.

There are similar parallels to the brand name. It can tell us something about the demographics of the target groups and about the brand's cultural starting point. A good brand name can also have a positive effect on employees' motivation. Whether it really is the case that we create the name that in turn creates us, must be an assumption. Scholars dispute this.

Nevertheless, the research is full of conclusions about which names strike or not. According to the authors behind the book "Marketing Aestehics", the following rules of thumb are listed: The name should be easy to remember. It should say something about the product, company or benefits the brand holds. It should be easy to write and pronounce in most languages. Names outside their own language area, such as Latin, can be a challenge. Such names are a hard nut to crack for our brains. We do not immediately manage to translate the word into a picture and thus we forget it more easily.

Jump into the sea, said Häagen-Dasz, pointing his nose at what the research put on the table. This brand name is neither easy to pronounce nor write, and it says nothing and nada about product benefits. But it puts a strong emphasis on an essential thing that trumps everything else; the association. For the average American, and ice cream lover, this brand name has become a representation of the Swiss Alps and something indefinably fresh and Nordic. Good enough to soar among global brand names. Diesel jeans are another example of a brand name that breaks rules. It says nothing about the product, but sends the associations to the oil field and the pants' original use as work clothes.

There are over 25 million registered brand names. In a large shopping center, you risk being exposed to about 60,000 of these. In comparison, our vocabulary at best is around 6000 words. For the average in the population, it tilts around 3000 words. It goes without saying that space becomes cramped for brands that seek space in the most generous of all homes - in the consumer's mind.

You never get the second chance to make a good first impression. For the brand name, this saying applies more than anything else. For that reason, the naming processes should not be a "home alone party" where the company struggles with its subjective input. Then the result will be neither original nor viable over time. A naming process is a process for management where objective acumen replaces the company's myopia. To avoid this trap, it can be smart to bring in expertise from outside. As the examples with Diesel show, there are no rules for the perfect name. But there is a formula that will help you think better:

Dare to be different, brave and authentic.