AJPark

Even if time and care is spent selecting a brand, things can still go wrong.  A recent branding exercise by Kraft is a prime example.

Kraft embarked on a public competition to choose a brand name for its new VEGEMITE with added cream cheese.  More than 30,000 Australians put forward 48,000 names over a three-month period.

The name chosen for the new product was isnack2.0.  Kraft announced the winner of the competition by saying:

"the name Vegemite isnack2.0 was chosen based on its personal call to action, relevance to snacking and clear identification of a new and different Vegemite to the original.  We believe these three components completely encapsulate the new brand."

Within four days of the launch, Kraft dropped the new brand name.  Kraft was so overwhelmed by the negative comments about the new brand, that it launched another campaign to find a new name.

Never has a brand created so much internet chat on sites such as Twitter, Facebook and MySpace.  Customer indignation was high and universal.

So what went wrong? 

The lesson to be learnt here is 'don't be too clever with your branding'.  And 'don't be populist'.  By choosing isnack2.0, Kraft was looking to tap into the popularity of the iPod brand and the interactive nature of the Web 2.0 era.

No doubt driven by good intentions, the result has been a public relations disaster.  isnack2.0 did not resonate with Kraft's customers - in fact, it alienated them.  The voice of the customer spoke and the name was canned.  Clearly, Kraft was caught up with the phenomenon and Web 2.0 revolution, and subsequently forgot that these were not important criteria for consumers of a vegetable-based spread product.  The new name, CHEESYBITE, while only attracting 36% of the vote, is probably a safer option.

Kraft is not the only business to experience such a naming failure.  When the chocolate covered rice cereal COCO POPS had its name changed to CHOCO KRISPIES, a poll of Brits found that 92 per cent were unhappy with the change.  The decision was reversed and the product did better than ever.  

As the world moves faster, consumers have less time to think about what they buy.  Brands have the power to persuade consumers now, more than ever.  A strong brand will make your business more successful than a weak one.  The strongest brands are the ones that can be registered as trade marks.

But not all brands are created equal.  To create strong and registrable brand names, consider the following steps.

Step one: do the analysis

Developing strong brand names is a discipline that starts by analysing your product and your company's market position.  Then you need to define what your brand stands for, its target markets, goals and values.

Step two: create ideas

Once you complete your product and market analysis, you can start creating brand name ideas.  Get ideas from marketing staff, design agencies and software packages.  Don't ignore middle-of-the-night brainwaves.

There are many linguistic tactics for developing brands, such as:

• joining words
• symbolism
• onomatopoeia
• composition
• tacking
• clipping
• mimicking
• idiophones
• analogy.

Create a long list of potential brand names.  Don't rule out any names at this stage.

Step three: shortlist your ideas

Go through your list and think about the following points before you decide to shortlist, or throw out, potential brand names.

Think about each brand name.  Is it:

• relevant to the market where the product will be sold?
• original and unique - does it distinguish your product for competitors' products?
• memorable or easily forgettable?
• associated with positive or negative imagery?
• a stand-alone brand or does it need imagery as well?
• viable long-term or does it lack endurance?
• expressed in as few words as possible?
• easily pronounced?
• able to be used across all media?
• associated with other words?  Check colloquial use, acronyms and other translations to make sure any associations are positive, not negative.
• registrable as a trade mark in New Zealand?

You should also think about how your potential brand names fit with the:

• heritage and history of your business or product
• current brand positioning of your other products
• names of competitors' and competing products
• vision of the brand's future.

Step four: filter your ideas for 'X' factor

You should filter your shortlist of potential brand names for the marketing 'X' factor.  If you want to use the brand name in countries with different cultures and languages, then you should check meanings of your potential brand in each country.  Some businesses have not made this check with disastrous results.

Step five: get an objective opinion

You might have your own favourite brand name, but it is important not to choose a name until you complete all steps in the process.

The objectivity test is important. You should conduct market research on a scale that suits your budget, time frame, and the nature of the marketplace.
It is important to get customer feedback on a potential new brand. 

Step six: make sure you can register your brand as a trade mark

For your brand name to be registrable as a trade mark in most countries, the name should not:

• describe a quality or characteristic of the goods or services the trade mark will be used on
• be a surname
• be a place name
• be offensive
• be against law or morality
• be deceptive
• suggest Royal Patronage.

Brand names that are made-up words are the easiest to register as trade marks.  Made-up words can be more difficult to market because they do not communicate anything to the consumer about the product.  But using a product description alongside a meaningless brand name fixes this problem.

Step seven: check your brand name is available

After you have narrowed down your shortlist of potential brands, the final check is a trade mark clearance search.  A search makes sure the same name, or similar name, is not already being used by someone else.

Selecting a trade mark that cannot be used - because it is the same or similar to someone else's brand - does not make good business sense and exposes you to legal action.

Even if you follow a process like the one outlined above, it is still possible to sometimes select a brand that fails to fire. 

Don't be scared to do a 'U-turn'. Reversing a decision and scrapping a brand failure could mean you create an even stronger bond between your product and customers.  We will wait to see how CHEESBYBITE fares.

An edited version of this article was published on the HomeBizBuzz website, December 2009.

• 

  Corinne Blumsky

  Partner