Volume 18, Number 1 Article by Manu Parashar March, 2006
The Making of a Name: The Inside Story of the Brands We Buy : By Steve Rivkin and Fraser Sutherland, Oxford University Press, New York, 2004, pp. 275, Price: $28 (cloth). :
Getting the right name for a brand or even a business is one of the biggest challenges that any practising marketer faces. There are many challenges – the name should have good recall potential, fit in with the business or product, fit in with the values of the organisation, appeal to the target audience, and so on. Further, there are increasingly complex challenges on the legal front to register the name and successfully retain it. Globalisation has brought with it new problems, like that of making sure that the name works across markets and conveys roughly similar sets of meanings and values. Further, the name should have an available domain name on the net. These are considerable difficulties that people in the business of naming names face. Rivkin and Sutherland have attempted through this book to systematically cover this field. Given that the authors are a brand-naming consultant and a dictionary editor, the expectation is that they would be able to de-mystify the whole process of naming and provide some direction in terms of what makes a successful brand name. The fact that there are very few books in this area makes this an important work.
The book is divided into three parts. Part I covers ‘names’. A typology of names is provided and three types of names are described. Descriptive names either affirm some quality by which a product, service or quality wishes to be known, or ascribes a source or origin. Allusive names work by obliquely associating desirable qualities with the products they represent. Coined names are simply made-up names and can be classified into four levels of complexity – hybrid words, altered words, foreign words and words with no recognisable linkages. Part II is the most important part of the book. This part consisting of seven chapters has a wide sweep. The authors move from simple processes of brainstorming and examples of good or bad brand names to a dissertation on language itself. Use of phonetics, linguistics and alphabets in the construction of brand names is illustrated here. There is a chapter devoted to symbols and their meanings in brand names and brand logos. A cross-cultural perspective is provided as well. Part III is on the operational issues in brand naming. This discusses everything from legal issues, process problems, web related issues and other related issues that come up post naming.
The strength of this book comes from the fact that there are very few books on brand naming and this is among the best in that group. The flow of the book is fairly logical and covers a lot of ground. The typology of names in part one of the book provides a good base to build up the underlying processes that help put names together. Examples are used from a wide array of industries and help clarify the arguments. There is an attempt to build a theory of naming using phonetics, semiotics and linguistics. Academically oriented readers will find this section interesting. Not only are sounds deconstructed but origins of language are also brought into play. There are several new terms introduced here that many readers would encounter for the first time. The cross-cultural impact of naming is also discussed in great detail with a surfeit of familiar examples of how some names do not travel very well. Another interesting area is on how brand names are susceptible to fashion, exemplified in the IT boom of the 1990s. An eye opener to this reviewer was the fact that there are software packages that can come up with hundreds of brand names, especially of the hybrid variety, based on a set of parameters. Web resources for naming as well as on language are provided in the appendix and are worth looking up.
One flaw in the book is that the authors get carried away with trying to build theory. While the first few chapters are simple and promise to de-mystify this whole process of brand-naming, the chapters in the middle seem to put the cover of fog right back on. The question is whether in their attempt to systemise the field with a dose of theory, they are attempting to inject objective analysis into something that lies in the arena of social construction. There are no definitive answers to this. However, when it comes to practice, the book reveals that 66% of companies see internal task forces as most effective in naming exercises while only 12% see brand-naming consultants as most effective. Advertising agencies notch up 15% of the vote.
Despite its shortcomings this is probably the most comprehensive volume on brand names. Every entrepreneur, marketer, advertising executive, marketing student and aspiring brand-name consultant should be aware of the theories and the ideas being put forward in this book. There are hundreds of examples, suggested pitfalls and some interesting ways of looking at naming brands. A good book, probably the best currently, to have on the bookshelf.
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