How a good name is engaging: 4 tips

When you look at the names of today’s world’s most engaging brands, like Apple, Microsoft and TikTok, you may wonder if there’s a relation between the name and brand engagement. Does a brand name actually make a difference here?

In fact, it does. Because brand naming is a central part of a brand’s user experience. Users speak and write your brand naming when they communicate and interact with it. Good brand naming supports that. It helps brands engage with their audiences and convey the brand’s story.

It’s tempting to pick a name that makes clear what the offer is or does, but that’s rarely what makes it special and engaging. People are engaged because of how the brand does its thing – and even more: why.

The ‘why’ is where a brand bonds with its audience. Even when you prefer a brand for very down-to-earth reasons, like convenience and good quality for the price, the emotional bond is created when you trust that the brand cares and does its best for you. That is the minimal story a brand name should be able to carry. Action, the name Europe’s fastest growing non-food discounter is a perfect example.

But there are more possibilities. If the brand is ambitious and has ideas about how the world should change - that’s what should reflect in the naming. Vinted, Lithuania’s first tech unicorn and an online marketplace for secondhand items, easily conveys the good feeling of finding valuable secondhand goods.

If your brand has several offerings in a variety of categories, it helps user interaction if you connect messaging about the ‘why’ of your brand to the main brand. Leave the ‘how’ and the ‘what’ for product ranges and specific offerings. This way your portfolio helps you convey your whole story every time a user interacts with it.

For naming, this means that main brand names should focus their messaging on the why, in a way that is ownable and open for future developments.

Names for offerings should focus on the what and how. They should include ‘why’ messaging if it’s specific for the offerings, or not emphasized enough by the main brand.

A great example is Kellogg’s, where the main brand stands for responsible nourishment. The products that exactly fit this positioning are Corn Flakes and Bran Flakes, with their aptly descriptive names. Other offerings add more fun and joy to that promise, and so do their names, each to their own degree: Crunchy Nuts, Coco Pops and Frosties.

The best names are like paper clips. The simpler and more straightforward a name feels, the easier it is to interact with for your audience. This is particularly good about names like Ikea, TikTok and Nike. But even names that are slightly longer can be easy to spell and pronounce, even in different languages. An interesting name is Accenture. It has a melodic quality that makes up for its length and complexity.

Names exist to bring distinction. So however simple a name should be - it also has to stand out.

The best way to get to a distinctive name is to think of how your brand is breaking convention and lay the emphasis on that in the name. Is your brand creative and artistic in a world that is digitized and technical? Then call it Adobe, after the building material. Is it personal and empowering in a world dominated by media corporations? Call it YouTube.

And if there is not a distinction in the product, what you could do is suggest one with the name. This is what happened in the case of Häagen Dazs, a name that was invented in the middle of an ice cream price war in New York. The name was chosen to suggest a Danish origin, adding up to the experience of taste and exclusivity. It worked.