Brand Packaging vs. the Name: Which Is More Powerful?

When someone hears a new brand or product name, it can capture their interest, stir their imagination, and — most importantly —  stick out in their mind. Ultimately, however, a great name is only as powerful as the imagery and messaging that is wrapped around it. 

Your new name and your logo, tagline, copy, imagery, and other brand assets should work together like finely-tuned instruments in a symphony, really making your brand sing. When one of these elements is out of sync, it can sound like an out-of-tune note in an otherwise harmonious melody.

Building a brand identity and a name to suit it takes finesse and a deep understanding of your goals and public perception. It means carefully considering all the elements that make up your brand and what they’re communicating to your audience. Here’s what you need to know.

Building a Brand Identity

It’s a well known fact that your audience’s emotional and psychological connection to your name and brand elements drive their perception of your company, products, and services. For people to connect with your brand, they need to be able to clearly understand its identity. 

Your brand package provides visual and verbal cues to help your audience understand what you’re all about and gain a fuller picture of your values, attitude, and offerings. It also helps viewers decide whether or not your brand accurately represents their idea of their own identity. Studies show that consumers use brands as a means of self-expression and as a way to channel their aspirations for their own lifestyle. In other words, there is an intrinsic and often unconscious tie between a consumer’s brand preferences and their self image.

Elements of a brand package include (but are not limited to):

• Logo
• Colors
• Typography
• Photography
• Graphics
• Tagline
• Messaging
• Copy
• Web design

Essentially your name and brand assets help viewers relate to your brand almost as they might another person. They will implicitly decide whether you seem trustworthy, edgy, classic, whimsical or whatever other characteristics your brand represents. 

More specifically, a cohesive brand package and name:

• drive consumer loyalty
• provide a memorable interaction with your brand
• hint at your values, the types of products and services you offer, and your brand “vibe”
• influence audience perception of your reliability and quality
• help people quickly recognize your company/products

Choosing a Name and Brand Package That Work Together

As mentioned above, it’s crucial that your name and your brand elements work together — otherwise, it could leave people confused about how to feel about you. Even worse, it could potentially negatively impact your business’s credibility and audience perceptions of its quality.

When brand assets and names work together, however, the results can be nothing short of miraculous. 

To get there, you’ll need to get clear on the characteristics you want your brand and your name to embody. This may mean giving some thought to your ideal audience, doing research on who you want to target, and building buyer or user personas that speak to those demographics. It also involves creating a working brand strategy.

Doing some of this legwork before you begin name development will help you choose a name that accomplishes what you want it to.

How NameStormers Can Help

What you want a name to do and how people actually perceive it are two separate things, however. You can have a crystal clear, bullet proof brand strategy and still fail if your name and packaging aren’t affecting people the way you want them to.

You and your team members are coming to your name from an entirely different perspective than your audience and/or the general public. That means it’s impossible for you to know whether or not a name will appeal to your target demographic, generate buzz, and be memorable without some kind of objective testing.

This is where NameStormers comes in. We have a proven company naming techniques that allows us to test for memorability, impact, and other factors. We also screen names for domain availability, trademarking, cultural acceptability, and more. Lastly, we have the objective distance and expertise you need to generate names that are unique, memorable, and suited to your brand identity.

If you are looking for a new name for your company, brand, or product, we want to hear from you. Contact us today to learn more.