How Edgy Names Help Challenger Brands Stand Out

Key Points

1. An edgy name can help challenger brands stand out—if it aligns with your audience and brand strategy.
2. Provocative names like “Liquid Death” generate buzz, and too much polarization can limit long-term growth.
3. Memorable names drive attention, but naming success depends on behavioral response, not just opinions.
4. In B2B industries, edgy names may hurt credibility—clarity and function often matter more than creativity.
5. Balance boldness with strategy: test, measure reactions, and stay consistent with your brand identity.

Challenger brands often employ controversial or edgy names to stand out from established competitors. But how far is too far when it comes to creating memorable brand names that cut through the clutter without alienating potential customers?

The Power of Edgy Brand Names

Mike Carr discusses the delicate balance between being edgy, irreverent, and potentially offensive in brand naming. The key question for businesses is: what makes an edgy name effective vs. detrimental?

The metric for evaluating edgy names should always consider:

• Your target audience 
• Your overall brand strategy
• The specific product you’re naming

Successful Edgy Name Examples

Liquid Death Water

In the highly saturated water market, a name like “Liquid Death” proves brilliant because:

• It cuts through the clutter in a commodity category
• It generates conversation and curiosity
• It appeals to younger consumers who appreciate edgy branding

I Am Nut OK

This vegan cheese brand uses wordplay that works well because:

• It acknowledges vegans’ outsider status in a positive, playful way
• It aligns with the brand’s personality
• It creates a fun, positive association despite being slightly self-deprecating

When Edgy Names Go Too Far

Not all controversial names achieve the right balance. For example, “DUNG” for snack bars might:

• Only appeal to a very narrow niche of consumers
• Limit growth potential across different age segments
• Create negative associations with the product

Similarly, “Who Gives a Crap” toilet paper might work for novelty purchases but raises questions about long-term brand sustainability.

The Polarization Factor

A critical consideration for edgy names is polarization. According to Carr:

• A little polarization (where 2-3% of people dislike the name) can be beneficial
• It makes the name conversation-worthy and helps organic spread
• However, if a third or more of your potential market hates the name, it becomes too risky

Emotional vs. Rational Decision Making

Mike Cesario, CEO of Liquid Death, believes that “the reasons people make decisions to buy products are rarely rational, but instead emotional.” This may be true for consumer products, but differs in B2B contexts where:

• Purchase decisions tend to be more functional or benefit-oriented
• Names that are too cute or consumer-oriented can appear unprofessional
• Names should reflect the product’s function while maintaining some distinctiveness

Finding the Right Balance

For challenger brands looking to disrupt through naming, consider:

1. Be intentional about who you’re targeting and how they might react
2. Assess whether limited appeal aligns with your market strategy
3. Balance memorability (the “golden rule” of naming) with the risk of alienating your audience
4. Choose names that elicit positive reactions even if they raise eyebrows

The most effective edgy names create conversation without crossing into territory that limits brand growth potential or creates lasting negative associations.

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Podcast Transcription

Mike Carr (00:10):

This week I have a topic that I think many of you’re going to find very interesting. I’m going to talk about naming and challenger brands. So the real question is how far is too far? Pola Lem wrote a great article in last week’s, the Grocer, and the article was titled, who Gives a Crap About a Brand Name? And if you haven’t read it, I highly recommend you get a copy. So what it really comes down to is balancing edginess and irreverence and offensiveness with something that cuts through the clutter and gets noticed. One of the examples he cites is Liquid Death, which is a brand for just water. And so you think about is that a good name or is that a bad name? And the metric that we use for our clients and that I think you need to use for whatever it is your naming is, who’s your target?

(01:09):

What is your strategy and what actually your naming? So in the case of water, extremely cluttered category, a name like Liquid Death is probably brilliant, right? It cuts through the clutter, it gets noticed, it gets that kind of reaction. It maybe generates conversation and curiosity. It also appeals to, I think, their target, that younger consumer that’s a little bit more tolerant of edgy, risque names. So another example though that he cites is dung for a line of snack bars. Now, granted, it might appeal to a very narrow niche. Gen Zers may love it, but I just don’t see that as a brand that you can grow and move to other aid segments. But here’s the key, and this is one of the things that I think we always try to look at. How polarizing is it? A little bit of controversy is a great thing, right?

(02:05):

Where a few people really raise their eyebrows and don’t like it because that controversy makes the name worthy of conversation. It’s interesting. And before you know, it sort of spreads organically through the social ether. So if you alienate two, 3% of your market with a name that’s a little edgy, a little polarizing, that’s often a good thing because that means it’s not dull, it’s not boring. And the other 97% of your market that may like the name hear about it much quicker without you having to spend nearly as much money. But a name that’s too polarizing, third or more of your potential market just hates the name and they’re going to talk negatively about it, even though everyone hears about it. Is that really where you want to land? Depends on your brand strategy. It depends on what percentage of total market you want to sell.

(03:00):

So we actually are testing names for which name cuts through the clutter the quickest and gets noticed, right? That’s a key for a lot of consumer brands. Dung probably does that. But then we ask the why, and that’s where we get into polarization, and that’s where I think you’ve really got a big red flag or a little bitty red flag that you should look at. Another name that was cited in this article is Who gives a crap toilet paper? My guess is it’s probably going to work really well for the novelty purchase for that one time purchaser. Is that a sustainable name over time? I don’t know. I mean, granted, it’s a low engagement category, and when you have a category where consumers just don’t care and they’re not very excited about the products, who gives a crap toilet paper, might create a sense of humor, a smile on their face, all that kind of stuff.

(03:51):

A name though that I do like in the vegan space, the vegan cheese space, I am nut, okay? Vegans are sort of viewed as oddball anyway, and they take great pride in that. So even though that’s a little bit disparaging to me, it’s done in a very fun and actually even in a positive way. One of the quotes that Polo had in his article is from Mike Rio, who’s the CEO of Liquid Death. The reasons people make decisions to buy products are rarely ever rational, but instead emotional. I think in some cases that’s absolutely true. That’s not always the case. We do a lot of work in the B2B space business clients that are selling to other businesses. It’s not as much an emotional decision as it is a functional or a benefit oriented decision. So a different style of name actually works better there than just the pure emotional and actually something that’s too cute, that’s too consumerish sounding is very off-putting and comes across very unprofessional and not very serious for most of our business clients.

(05:00):

So let me give you an example of a name that did work well. We developed this many years ago for Intergraph. It was a CAD camp package, a computer software package for designing things. And it was sold to mechanical engineers and civil engineers that work with physical materials, real objects, not things that are just in the virtual world. So they worked with solids. So the name we gave them was Solid edge. And so they loved the solid because it sort of grounded the CAD cam package and what it does, what kinds of materials it works with. And then Edge was really interesting because from a design standpoint, the biggest breakthroughs, the biggest innovations are often made on the edge of something. On one interpretation of that is it’s giving that engineer a solid edge. An advantage, maybe it had a little bit of emotional cache, which is great, but more importantly it was functional and benefit oriented in terms of what it did.

(05:59):

So a challenger brand by definition is disruptive. And so when you think about things that disrupt, they often are edgy, right? They often are a bit irreverent or at least very different than anything else that you’ve seen in the space. So regardless of what you decide to do and regardless of what name you pick, think about polarization, not just the golden rule of naming, which is memorability, but not at the risk of alienating your audience. And once you have a name, also remember that requires constant care and feeding that your messaging always has to be consistent with your original brand strategy. You can’t go too far afield, and I think you’re going to have much success and much growth. See you next week.