Creative Branding … Dilbert Style
April 19th, 2007 by Chief NutCreative branding, for sure, includes the first (and hardest) step …�� coming up with a fabulous name … a corporate name, a product name, or a service name. A LOT of your branding potential rides on the back of how creative and “on brand” the name is. My question to you is, “WHO should do the heavy lifting of name research and brainstorming?” Probably the best group would be the brand/marketing people. That is their job, is it not?
The trick is to give this task to the people with the right mindset and the right creative skills… somone who understands the process of how to creatively build brand. It certainly shouldn’t be the engineering team. Definitely not the line workers. Not the sales folks. These are all pretty obvious but what about the thousands of companies who have a C-level person (usually due to control issues) dip their hand into the name-game a little too deeply at the expense of brand effectiveness? Or, now my favorite, how about when you let your corporate attorney do the naming?
Read this hilarious Dilbert strip by Scott Adams!
When the wrong people are involved in this critical process, the brand suffers. When a process allows personal opinions and “design by committee” to overide and squash a well thought out creative plan, the brand suffers. BE PICKY PEOPLE! The committee should be 3-4 hand picked individuals who understand:
- the creative branding process
- the importance of indirect, lateral thinking
- the direction and the mission of the company
- great brainstorming session rules
Excellent points, Kev.
Naming and branding are hard enough. To complicate things, these day you also have to take into consideration what domain names are available. And since some people demonstrate they have nothing better to do but to buy thousands of domain names at a time, just for kicks (and with the hopes they’ll be able to sell people their dream business names - and often even their birth-given names - back to them at a huge profit), this is NEVER an easy task.
The needs and expectations are HUGE:
Easy to spell, easy to pronounce, no trademark issues, no competing products, services, and companies by the same name…
And then you factor in the penchant for decision by committee, the pathological corporate nose scrunchers (”Nah, I don’t like it.”), ego, small thinkers, literal thinkers, robotic thinkers, and all the thinkers who lack vision and creativity (and apparently, any ability to look at the real business world and see what’s out there, already thriving!), and you’ve got your work cut out for you.
Oh, and with YOUR specialized branding approach, don’t forget you ALSO have to find a great names that supports undertones of strong, universally held ARCHETYPES. (!)
Hey - I think Dilbert’s team has no choice but to go with a made up name that sounds a monkey passing a kidney stone. ESPECIALLY if it’s easy to spell, and the domain is available!
(Now THAT would be a fun logo to design, wouldn’t it?)
-Lani Voivod
a Content Lover
http://www.EpiphaniesInc.com
“A-Ha Yourself!”
Comment by Lani Voivod — April 20, 2007 @ 2:49 pm
Lani, I share your frustration with naming issues in the modern world. In deciding a name, these days domain trumps copyright. That bonehead who owns every conceivable domain name is in for a surprize if he tries to register any of them to start a real company and finds them taken. He owns the domain but not the company. It’s double edged dilemma. Each one wants a piece of the other.
My own wish is that from the beginning, it should have been if you wanted the domain you must also register the name for copyright. Ah, but it was not to be.
Comment by Ed Roach — April 24, 2007 @ 9:51 pm