Are you swimming in an ocean of confusing names?

Our B2B and B2C brand name architectures are custom designed ecosystems for each client and specify the relationships between all of your names. It provides the guidelines on how to create, structure, and manage names for your products, services, features, and sub-brands. It can validate or provide the rationale for changing your house-of-brands, branded house or hybrid naming strategy. It lays out the relationships among names (e.g., whether products use the master brand name with a descriptor, or have standalone names) and guides how new names should be developed and integrated into your existing portfolio. If done properly, it serves as a flexible blueprint for how your naming system evolves over time and is robust enough to accommodate unforeseen changes. It is a living, breathing organic document that:

• Clarifies Rather than Confuses: Helps everyone internally and externally recognize and understand the hierarchy and relationships of offerings within a company’s portfolio.
• Improves Consistency Over Time: Encourages and rewards standardized naming conventions, styles, and approaches across most but not all products and services.
• Builds Brand Equity: Conveys how each name relates to and benefits from the master brand or sub-brand it is associated with.
• Accelerates Growth: Provides guidelines for naming new offerings in a way that aligns with existing brand structures—helpful when you expand or acquire new product lines.
• Simplifies Complexity: Eliminates the natural tendency of random, ad-hoc naming that can fragment the brand and confuse customers, employees and partners.

A well-designed naming architecture is really for everyone including:

• New product development and innovation teams needing to name new offerings.
• Your sales force that needs names to engage prospects quickly and get them to take the next step in the sales process.
• HR or your recruiters that leverage your names to attract and hire new, motivated and talented team members.
• The rest of your employees who take pride in what they produce, what it is called and how it resonates not just with customers but with their friends and family who want to know more about what they do.
• Investors who are looking for exciting names and cohesive naming systems that make sense and drive growth.

The benefits of this type of well thought-out naming framework and guidebooks encompass:

• Improving Brand Recognition & Trust: A cohesive naming architecture helps everyone identify each of your offering’s connections to a trusted master brand or sub-brand.
• Enabling Scalability: As your company grows, adding new offerings or entering new markets, you will need a consistent, strategic approach to naming that can scale easily and reliably.
• Streamlining Legal & Trademark Registration: Having a defined system and guidelines will typically reduce the need for trademark searches and the risk of infringement or diluted naming.
• Facilitating Internal Alignment: A clear naming architecture should empower your employees to communicate effectively about your company’s portfolio and help them name their new offerings appropriately.

Here are the steps we will follow to help you construct an architecture that should provide lasting competitive advantage:

• Complete Your Brand Audit: Inventory existing brand names, product names, and any relevant sub-brands and evaluate how they interact, who they are targeted to, their current level of recognition and competitive environment.
• Integrate Your Brand Strategy: Identify your organization’s mission, vision, and long-term growth plans. Also, assess the role of each your offerings: Does its current name reinforce the corporate brand? Is the offering important enough to warrant a standalone brand name? How well does its name work alongside other names it is used with?
• Define Your Naming Goals: Establish what success looks like (e.g., instant reaction, works well with other names, trademark availability, free from any real linguistic issues). Determine how closely linked each name needs to be with a parent brand name and how descriptive or suggestive the names should be.
• Pick & Tailor the Right Architecture Model
  • Monolithic/Branded House: All products share the master brand name (e.g., FedEx Express, FedEx Ground).
  • Endorser Brand: Sub-brands have unique names but include an endorsement (e.g., Courtyard by Marriott).
  • House of Brands: Each product/brand stands alone (e.g., P&G with Tide, Pampers, Gillette, etc.).
  • Hybrid Model: Combines elements of two or more of the above (e.g. you might prefer the Branded House approach but don’t want to risk tarnishing your master brand with a new, unproven product so you’ll name it independently of your master brand until it has proven itself in your market).
• Agree Upon Your Naming Guidelines & System: Specify your naming usage templates and nomenclature guidelines (e.g., product names are always two parts with the first part relating to the application and the 2nd part relating to a benefit provided or a unique differentiator). Outline your visual identity or verbal style parameters (e.g., naming character length, language considerations, brand tone).
• Validate & Approve Naming Conventions: Conduct trademark screenings, legal checks, and linguistic tests. Present and “sell” stakeholders (marketing, legal, leadership) on conventions’ advantages to ensure buy-in.
• Establish Branding Leadership & Processes: Specify who owns the naming process (e.g., brand team or naming committee). Provide Decision Tree for future naming requests, renaming and nomenclature “tweaking”.
• Sell & Implement: Present the naming architecture internally (marketing, product, sales, legal, etc.) and answer questions.  Make sure everyone understands how to name new offerings or update existing ones consistently.
• Propagate Guidelines & Monitor Usage: Update all internal and customer-facing materials to reflect the architecture. Periodically review new and existing names to ensure ongoing alignment and address any confusion.
• Pivot & Refine, As Needed: As your organization grows or changes direction (e.g., via M&A or brand realignment), tweak your naming architecture to ensure it still supports your consistency and cohesive branding objectives.