A Name to Compare With A Discussion of the Naming of New Brands

Abstract

The age‐old question of “what's in a name?” is analysed from a marketing standpoint. The author studies the manifold effects of different names upon us, in a general context, and isolates two opposing principle's for evaluating brand nomenclature: the Juliet principle, in which a name is justified by its traditional associations; and the Joyce principle, where names depend on their phonetic symbolism to communicate an idea. Certain groups of letters have been shown, by experiment, to possess qualities of “darkness” or “lightness”, “largeness” or “smallness”, etc., to a concensus of people. A word can also have a symbolic function arising from the associations it produces in the minds of consumers. The author proceeds from these suggestions to evolve guidelines for those engaged in the creation of new brand names. He discusses the evaluation of not only “traditional” names, but also apparently meaningless names like “Omo” or “Kleenex”, and shows how certain names work, or might be expected to work, in the market situation. The name is the one unchangeable part of the marketing mix. This psycholinguistic approach helps to put the question of the “naming of brands” into perspective, giving criteria for a “good” name, and elucidating the stages of arriving at it. Finally, the author points out that wholeness of approach is necessary —the felicity of the name chosen will be conditioned by the depth of involvement of relevant personnel concerned with the new product.

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