All of us branding types love a corporate name brief. Many don’t actually, as reality hits early and hard that no-one will like the names, the lawyers will be upset to varying degrees about them all and the whole thing might take 3-6 months, at a time when Marketing is trying to move quickly to talking about colours, website and the Instagram favicon. Why does the corporate name matter so much? Well, because without it we have no platform from which to tell our story.
Every great corporate name must tell a story. Often not on day one and not always in an obvious and descriptive way. The story will tell and re-tell itself over time, as a brand evolves and innovates. Yet a corporate name story there must be.
I want to start a brand strategy business called SHARDER (not enough clearly, as 25 years in to the game I havn’t done it yet). The word shard is a pleasure, sonically and pictorially. Its jagged edge and transparency conveys majestically that our value proposition on behalf of clients will be that of delivering clarity and cutthroat insight. Shards – our sharper than most employees – will be welcome to tell their stories on Glassdoor. Nick Lowe’s ‘I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass’ (who was the keyboard player on that?) will accompany our launch video, which will quite literally show various Shards in a glazing frenzy, repairing our clients’ brands. Our recruitment philosophy – No Pane, no Brain – will reduce any below average candidate to a broken fragment of their professional selves. CVs to jaggedprospects@glassceiling.com
Having established that literally no one will want to come and work for us, I’m left 1) still freelancing and 2) with an untold narrative. Sharder.com happens to be for sale and the trade mark seems to be clear on an identical basis in class 35. Oh well. That little window might be best left closed.
Creating and choosing a corporate name comes down to a few principles that clients embarking on this most strategic and creative of exercises should have in mind.
1) the corporate name itself is probably less than half of the game. The story and how you tell it over time will be of far greater value to the brand than the collection of letters itself. ‘Can this help write and tell our story?’ is always a better question than ‘will our customers like the name?’
2) make sure the decision-makers understand the critical role creative routes play within the naming brief. They are often overlooked as ‘something the namer can worry about’ – but actually from these strategic platforms come the acorns of a solid corporate naming story. They are particularly important in the first round of creative – the brief may evolve and a naming ‘outrider’ is always a possibility – but your namer should be ecstatic to answer a question about which of the creative platforms sparked any of the proposed ideas and how the name reflects it.
3) there will likely be corporate name winners that are not ‘easily understood, easily accessible, descriptive of our product or benefits’. An abstract or freestanding name will need to work harder from day one to attach itself to the corporate narrative and gain traction internally and externally. Yet the blank page, the future-flexibility, the potential to poke above all the naming clutter and ‘be different’ buys this strategy a ticket on to most corporate name briefs.
If, as CEO, you can’t see how a corporate name will start to write chapter 1 of a brand’s story, ask some questions. Or call Sharder, where names work harder.
