pag@sri-unix (08/06/82)
Concocting Zingy New Names Starts Turning Into a Business
By Carrie Dolan
Wall Street Journal (8/5/82)
In a secret laboratory 30 miles from San Francisco, three people are
experimenting with onomatopoeia, assonance and mnemonic devices. The
task is to make deodorant sound wholesome, lipstick sensual and a frozen
potato exciting.
The three people work for NameLab Inc., a firm that is named appropriately.
It does just one thing: it makes names for products. Since opening 18
months ago, it has churned out more than 40 names -- at about $15,000 apiece
-- for clients that include Miles Laboratories Inc., Union Carbide Corp.,
E & J Gallo Winery Inc. and Crocker National Bank. NameLab has christened
beer, vitamins, computers, dish soap and insurance policies. It now is
at work on names for three Chrysler sports cars due in 1984 or 1985.
Although corporations traditionally have spent plenty on zingy new-product
ideas, names often have been afterthoughts. "It was left to the boss's
inspiration or a contest among the secretaries," says Ira N. Bachrach,
founder of NameLab.
These days ad agencies and marketing executives usually are given the
task, but some companies are starting to turn to a small group of "name
consultants" like NameLab. "For hard-pressed marketing people, naming
is a difficult, routine process," explains Tom J. Moulson, a manager of
product research at Ford Motor Co., a NameLab client. "You get in a rut,
nobody likes the name and the pressure mounts."
Companies that deal exclusively with names are the first to say that
a good name won't save a lousy product. But they contend, the right name
can help a new product grab attention and increase its sales and market
share.
....
NameLab's process usually starts with a list of qualities a client
wants to convey. Mr. Bachrach and two staff linguists then make a list
of related root words from Latin, Greek, Anglo-Saxon and other languages
and another list of words that describe what the product is or does.
....
Also prized are words with "episodic encoding" -- words that remind
people of emotional or physical experiences like childbirth. [Miller's
next entry in the highly competitive beverage market: Umbilical Beer -- pag]
The name Mustang for a car, he says, "causes emotional responses in men,
associated with the excitement of being a cowboy."
....
Other namers use different methods. Brand Group Inc., a 13-year-old
Chicago consultant, occasionally has programmed a computer to spew suggestions.
A client that once asked for eight-letter nonsense words was told that
209 billion existed, 11 billion of which could be pronounced in English.
--peter gross