Branding Archives

May 11, 2023 By Ali Sell

The Mother of All Brand Names

What inspires a great brand name? For Zinzin, it’s getting outside of ourselves, our specialty, our industry. Sometimes, stepping outside of our familiar spaces sparks unexpected connections and other mind wanderings. For instance, we’re big fans of poetry, great literature, artists, and films.

On the other hand, sometimes inspiration for a great brand name lies closer to home. Very close to home. Ok, I’ll cut to the chase: it’s your mom.

Well, not your mom. But the “royal mom.” Is that a cheeky, new nosism? According to Wikipedia, the royal we (pluralis majestatis) refers to a single person holding a high office, such as a monarch, bishop, or pope…or mom, this Zinzin-namer (and mom) attests.

May 4, 2023 By Zinzin

Brand naming advice: Be difruhnt, but not that different

If your name is different for the sake of being different, then it’s likely doomed. The most powerful names are those that best support the brand positioning, no matter what. Depending on the circumstances, a name might be “extreme” or it might not. If your name is trying too hard to be different just in order to stand out, it won’t. It will blend in with all the other names that are also trying too hard, and failing, to stand out.

In good company

That is a long-held tenet in Zinzin’s naming manifesto. That’s why we were thrilled to see Lana Tlemat’s March 2023 article in Fast Company. It’s called “What do Lyft and Krispy Kreme have in common? This– and consumers hate it. Here’s a hint: Tumblr is another one.”

December 1, 2022 By Ali Sell

Holiday scents & nonsense: evocative candle names

Ahh, the cozy, inviting scents that fill our homes over the holidays — cinnamon, gingerbread, spruce, cedar, and…broken rosary, or old books?

Believe it or not, these are some of the holiday candle scents available this season. What does a broken rosary smell like, you ask? Apparently, it’s woody and floral (with a hint of Catholic guilt?), and it can be yours for $44.

Within recent years, scented candle names took a distinctly evocative turn. They went from being merely descriptive to evoking emotions, memories, and experiences. And as the holiday shopping season approaches, they’ll be everywhere. Traditional ones, like Yankee Candle’s basalm & cedar or peppermint pinwheels, are still around, of course. But Zinzin’s finely tuned naming noses sniffed out some doozies. So, let’s follow the holiday scented trail of this candle naming trend — will it wax or wane?

November 4, 2022 By Ali Sell

American brand names & Indigenous cultures: changing the narrative

The FX Series Reservation Dogs is changing the narrative.

Zinzin believes that language is alive and on the move. It’s like a living, breathing organism – always changing, morphing, evolving. Cultures change too, and names come and go over time. But some don’t. Why has one naming practice, in particular — brands named after different Indigenous cultures — lasted so long in America? And how is it changing? Let’s take a look at some American brand names derived from Indigenous peoples and cultures.

October 24, 2022 By Zinzin

Evocative names make the most powerful brand names

Your company or product name is the first and most elemental point of audience contact with your brand. In many respects, your name is the brand. It sets the tone. It’s the handshake, the introduction, the first impression (formed within a matter of seconds) for everything your brand is about.

Your name is the cornerstone of your entire brand identity to follow — logo, tagline, advertising, website, etc. That’s why it’s vital to get it right. And in our experience, evocative names pack the most powerful brand punch.

October 13, 2022 By Zinzin

Marketing the past: the psychology of nostalgia in naming and branding

Everyone has nostalgia now and then — that warm and fuzzy feeling of fondness often from a familiar aspect of our past. Maybe it’s inspired by a specific place, a song, or even a scent. But what about brands and brand names? Can they evoke nostalgic feelings? The answer is a resounding yes, judging by pop culture trends, cycles, loops, and pendulums. (The Nostalgia Pendulum — it’s a thing; more on that later.)

The business of nostalgia is big, and we here at Zinzin are curious about it. For instance, is “the nostalgia loop” (it’s a thing too) a 20, 30, or 40-year cycle? There seems to be arguments for each scenario, so imagine this blog post is an Oldsmobile station wagon … climb in “the way back,” and join me on a road trip to discover more about nostalgia and naming. (Cheesy? You bet. But if you’re feeling nostalgic all of the sudden, we’re probably in the same decade of life. And perhaps you also geeked out over the Netflix original series Stranger Things.)

October 10, 2022 By Zinzin

Naming made-up, coined, invented brand names

Plato, you saucy philosopher, you really get us namers, don’t you? We don’t usually wax Socratic here at Zinzin, but it warms our creative hearts to know that way back in 375 BC a great thinker understood the connection between creative invention and great need. In his famous dialogue, The Republic, Plato wrote, “Our need will be the real creator” — a proverb more widely known today as “Necessity is the mother of invention”…or invented names, as this case may be.

What’s an invented name?

An invented name falls under the category of brand names that includes purely made-up, morphemic mash-up, unknown foreign words, and abstract names with no inherent meaning. Some call them fabricated or newly coined. At their best, invented names can be poetic, rhythmic, and ripe for investing with the soul of a brand (think Google). On the other hand, bad invented names, often suffering from “morpheme addiction,” litter the cultural landscape, and should serve as a cautionary tale when going this route.

October 4, 2022 By Zinzin

Authenticity in naming: when brands keep it a little too real

Grinch Get Real meme — The Grinch Get Real Meme by KingBilly97 on DeviantArt.

In savage economic times, a company’s bottom line is on the line. External factors beyond a company’s control affect its performance, including customer buying habits. However, one thing that is within a company’s control is branding. And we’ve noticed that more and more top brass realize how important it is to get branding right. Usually, it all starts with a great name.

So, in naming, how does a company stay competitive and connected with customers in an economic environment that seems so unreal?

The answer, it seems to many, is to “get real” — really real, as in using the word “real” in a company name to communicate authenticity, which leaves Zinzin reeling. As we see it, to be truly authentic, a brand name must demonstrate, not explain its realness.

Check out this very real naming trend we call the “Get Real” movement and why it’s really gotta go.

September 14, 2022 By Zinzin

Harry Shearer’s Amtrak renaming/rebranding (renominalization) — plus railroad nicknames

The great Harry Shearer (American actor, voice actor, comedian, writer, musician, radio host, director, and producer) gives us a fly-on-the-wall perspective of a hypothetical Amtrak renaming (renominalization) / rebranding project from his LA-based KCRW radio show, Le Show.

“Amtrak New Brand Identity” renominalization sketch — by Harry Shearer | Oct. 21, 2001

This sketch, called “Amtrak New Brand Identity,” is over 20 years old by now, but it’s a true classic. It’s replete with Shearer’s pitch-perfect bizspeak and name coinages, such as micro-phenomenon, image vector, name palette, idiographic potency, Railiant, meaning recipe, and, of course, renominalization.

The sketch even anticipates the video conference era to come years later when Covid-19 became the new anthrax. If you’ve ever been involved in “quasi-governmental corporation” naming or branding — on either the agency (Nomeometrix!) or client side — you might experience a little post-traumatic stress disorder when you hear this. Enjoy (or weep).

August 30, 2022 By Holden Jurisich

How Do You Do, Fellow Kids? Gen Z-speak in naming and branding

It’s not enough for brands to just control your life. They want you to know that they’re one of you, too.

The social media era has ushered in a new kind of culture commanded by Generation Z. And with it, a new class of corporate vultures desperate to keep up, swooping in to scavenge morsels of relatability. This is, of course, a game they cannot win. Companies are almost always behind the curve, and even when they get closer to the curve with especially “quirky” or “edgy” strategies, their Gen Z audience typically remains skeptical and cynical.

To be clear, we’re not declaring any of the following names and branding choices “good” or “bad” per se. Such subjective decisions are up to you, the consumer, and will vary on an individual basis. However you feel about them on a surface level, though, I hope we can all appreciate the silliness of the broader dynamic that is the corporate appropriation of “Gen Z-speak.”

August 29, 2022 By Zinzin

Naming gone wrong: the Five Fatal Flaws that may be killing your brand

If your brand isn’t reaching the potential you think it should, perhaps it’s time for a brand audit. Specifically, take a long, hard look at the name of your brand. See if it suffers from one or more of these Five Fatal Flaws:

Flaw 1: Your brand has a boring, generic, descriptive name.

It blends in with a crowded field of weakly-named competitor brands. If you want people to notice, pay attention to, and care about your brand, you must not act out of fear. Don’t be ruled by FOSO (Fear of Standing Out) — be bold and unafraid!

Flaw 2: Your brand name is an invented mash-up with no meaning.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that the semantic meaning of individual morphemes translates into real-world brand engagement. It doesn’t. Such names may technically (linguistically) have “meaning,” but, like snowflakes in a blizzard, they are not meaningful.

August 17, 2022 By Zinzin

Frisco: a name origin story that’ll blow your stack

When Zinzin gets hold of a name that intrigues us, we go all in. We dig into its past, present, and ponder its future.

Here’s a name that got our wheels spinning: “Frisco.” At first, we only thought it was a nickname that tourists sometimes use for our fair city of San Francisco, apparently cringe-worthy to the ears of all “real” San Franciscans. However, when Zinzin learned about it’s 165-year-old storied and controversial origin, let’s just say the namer-train left the station.

June 22, 2022 By Ali Sell

Tech Company Naming: Get your SaaS in gear

At Zinzin, we love to name drop. Especially, when it’s a name we created for our fabulous client, Antimatter, doing sassy new things in the world of software as a service (SaaS).

That’s right; we said it: sassy.

Let’s take a look at two seemingly unconnected dots: the B2B SaaS infrastructure company, Antimatter, and why the word “sassy” is more than our attempt at being cute with SaaS. Zinzin believes both characteristics — serious and sassy — can successfully co-exist in a name when it maps true to its brand positioning.

Aside: We freely admit that we love to play with language. It’s part of Zinzin’s naming process. And it’s often how Zinzin brains make the most unlikely creative connections for our clients.

May 11, 2018 By Jay Jurisich

Get outside of yourself

From Yogi Berra to Confucius, history is ripe with wisdom and advice on our quest for knowledge. One of Zinzin’s favorite wise humans is author and motivational speaker, Simon Sinek. Specifically, he speaks about the quest for knowledge in our chosen disciplines. Where do we find it?

As it turns out, the answer doesn’t lie within. It actually lies with-out — outside of the familiarity of your home, office walls, industry publications and conferences.

We think Sinek nails it when he says, “There are things that you can learn outside of your discipline that can significantly contribute to the problems you’re solving at work. You only know what you know. You don’t know what you don’t know.”

April 13, 2015 By Jay Jurisich

Vanished Brands: Orange Whip

For no rational reason, I stumbled upon this particular Robert Frank photograph, below, from his famous 1955 book, “The Americans.” Ordinary Americans drinking soda at a Detroit drugstore soda fountain in the mid-1950s. But I was struck by the incredible display of advertising overkill going on for a drink called “Orange Whip” — only ten cents a glass! The air is thick with Orange Whip signs, and the man in the foreground seems to be enjoying a glass of this marvelous elixir:

Branding

In good company

What’s an invented name?

“Amtrak New Brand Identity” renominalization sketch — by Harry Shearer | Oct. 21, 2001

Flaw 1: Your brand has a boring, generic, descriptive name.

Flaw 2: Your brand name is an invented mash-up with no meaning.

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