Wrapping up season one: Tips for the naming process
Today’s episode marks the end of season one, but certainly not the end of this podcast. Plans for season two are already underway, and I’m very excited about some of the guests who’ve already signed on. But I won’t be ready to release those episodes for a little while, so…to make sure you’re the first to know when they’re available, please make sure you’ve signed up for the newsletter. And between now and season two, we’ll still be posting new articles and information on the website. You can follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook to make sure your seeing the latest content.
I’ve organized this season-one wrap-up episode loosely around the naming process: the naming brief, name generation (as well as a few tips on what to do if you get stuck), shortlisting, prescreening, and presenting names. For each step, I’ll call out some comments I found especially interesting or informative from interviews with nine naming experts:
- Anthony Shore of Operative Words
- Shannon DeJong of House of Who
- Clive Chafer of Namebrand
- Steven Price of Tessera Trademark Screening
- Amanda Peterson, formerly of Google (now at Milwaukee Art Museum)
- Jonathan Bell of WANT
- Laurel Sutton of Sutton Strategy (formerly of Catchword)
- Scott Milano of Tanj
- Eli Altman of A Hundred Monkeys
I had to leave tons of insights and tips the digital cutting room floor, so be sure to go back and listen to each episode or read through the transcripts. While you’re on the site, take a look at a blog post called Useful List: Online/software resources used by professional namers. Whenever a namer mentioned a website or some software they use during these interviews, I tried to collect it in a sortable table in that post—so hopefully that’s a good resource for you, and I’ll keep adding to it as I learn about more tools and resources.
Thank you to all of you for listening to season one of How Brands Are Built, and to everyone who left a rating or review, or reached out on social media or via the site. If you haven’t already subscribed, please do, at Apple Podcasts, or on Soundcloud, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts. By subscribing, you can be sure you’ll get the first episodes of season two as soon as they come out.
Until then, please visit the site for more branding content, or to contact me with any questions or suggestions.
Below, you’ll find the full transcript of the episode (may contain typos and/or transcription errors). Click above to listen to the episode, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts or elsewhere to hear every episode of How Brands Are Built.
You know what’s great? This is great…I’m a freelance brand planner often working alone at the front end of projects, and I feel like I have a little team to run things by here! Thanks for a brilliant resource that I find myself dipping into more and more now…it’s liberating to hear how other people work, because it’s easy to become set, at least with the bones of a process, that you feel ‘works’. Just…thanks!
Thanks, Heather! Glad you’ve found it useful!