I don’t get the opportunity to start this email with a Shakespeare quote often, which is a shame. So I’m going for it today: “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

But just how universal is that truism? Does it hold when you’re coming up with a name for a new brand?

Paul Earle, an adjunct lecturer of innovation and entrepreneurship, has an opinion on the matter.

“Shakespeare was a phenomenal writer—props to William. He was totally wrong on this one! What would happen if you named a rose ‘donkey vomit’? Naming is really hard to get right, and it’s really easy to get wrong,” he says. (I told you he had an opinion.)

Earle is speaking in episode 2 of our new Insight Unpacked podcast series on branding. We discussed episode 1, on whether your brand needs to exist, a couple weeks ago. Episode 2 is all about naming your new brand, which is what we’ll focus on today.

How to Name Your New Brand

Earle makes it clear that you want to avoid a bad name. And, as clinical professor of marketing Tim Calkins explains, a good name has the potential to elevate your product to a new level for consumers.

Consider vodka. “There’s really nothing about vodka in and of itself that is remarkable. But then you put on it the name Grey Goose, and all of a sudden people say, ‘Well, Grey Goose is this wonderful brand, and premium, and worth paying more for,’” Calkins says. “And again, it’s not the product. It’s that you put the brand on it, and then they say, ‘Oh, my gosh, that now is a very, very special thing.’”

So how do you go about finding a name to make something very, very special? There’s no magic recipe, but Earle and Calkins have some tips.

“Generally speaking, names that are short are better than names that are long,” Earle says. “It should be easy to say, easy to spell. It should have a story behind it. It should be relevant to the product.”

He advises finding a “spark” to build off of. Some sort of hook that leads you to a clever, meaningful name. He tells the story of a friend who created the oral care brand Hello. The other brands in that category sounded like they were going to war in your mouth, Earle says, by “attacking plaque” or “fighting cavities,” so his friend decided to focus on something friendlier, hence Hello.

Another strategy for finding this spark? Focus on how you want your brand to make people feel. Huggies evokes parental warmth and love, for example. Pandora signals discovery and excitement.

Keep in mind that if you go with a name that doesn’t immediately convey what your product does, such as Hello versus, say, Fresh Smiles, you’ll need to spend more resources explaining your brand to potential customers. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, just something you should consider ahead of time, Calkins cautions. “If you go with a brand that isn’t as descriptive, it’s going to be a lot more investment to let people know, what is that?”

Last tip: be prepared to throw all the other tips out the window.

Take the successful popcorn brand Boomchickapop. It’s kind of hard to spell. It’s long. And if you haven’t seen it in the store, you probably don’t know that it’s popcorn.

“It breaks almost every darn rule there is except for the most important one, and that is, it’s fun and engaging. And that’s superior to all other attributes,” Earle explains.

You can listen to the whole episode here, where you’ll also find some supplemental material, such as a Hello ad.

LEADERSHIP TIP

“You want to share who you are, where you are in your career, and what you can offer—with no apology.”

—Clinical assistant professor Ellen Taaffe in Insight, on reentering the workforce after a break.