Chapter 10
“I love your name!” & other free publicity.
Read Time:
3 Minutes 7.25 Seconds
(go on, we dare you to concentrate while watching a stopwatch)
The Reading Time for a Name is:
Visual shape of the whole 0.05 seconds
Visual hook 1 second
Retention capture 3 seconds
A Company Name has 1.5 to 3 seconds to grab the attention of a potential customer.
True?
That depends on the location, the context, the competition for attention, the customer’s mood, the colours you use, the shape of your logo, clarity of the font, the size, the contour bias — the marketplace.
In “The Theory of Up” the driving mechanism sits deep inside the Limbic brain. The evolutionary engine of survival, flight or fight, energy conservation – and split second decisions.
If a name or logo is not interesting enough, if it doesn’t have the visual hook that creates an instant mental image – an emotion – recognised and registered, it doesn’t make it to the 3 seconds it needs for retention it is expelled from the short term memory in 0.05 seconds.
You need to be inside that 3 seconds to have the chance to tell your story (there’s another approach – but that’s a different chapter).
BREAKING BAD RULES
A not so wise branding agency may insist you adhere to the “4 syllable rule” and keeping your name under 8 characters.
This is because they came up in the instant gratification era of Apple, Nike, Lego and Google – all names that can be said in one breath – also brands with billions available in marketing budgets – and more importantly iconic products that are fully part of their brand image.
For all those businesses and organisations that are not so easy to explain in a single photograph the accepted “rules” don’t apply.
Blue Strawberry Elephant (24 key strokes, 22 characters, 7 syllables, 3words) is living, breathing, designing, literal proof that intrigue can beat brevity.
Intrigued?
When we created the new brand for the International Sports Federation for Athletes with an Intellectual Impairment; the agreement on purpose came first, then the Zebra Mane logo to illustrate and represent the purpose, then the succinct Name.
We never thought the new brand’s aim was just to attract attention, that was actually third on the list.
In our minds we were going for:
Gold: First on the list was the pride of the stakeholders and athletes wearing the new brand.
Silver: Making the brand as credible and impactful as any other Paralympic organisation (or more credible and more impactful) and only then…
Bronze Medal position – greater awareness and interest of the wider public and potential sponsors.
(You can find the Case Study on the Brands Page)
Your Name is 50% (or more) of your Brand – Your Logo is the other 50% (or more) of your brand – it varies for everyone – there are no “rules”, just experience, expertise and imagination.
Logos we’ll come back to in Chapter 12.
But we’re mentioning Logos now, in the Naming Chapter, because the Blue Strawberry Elephant name evolved in the opposite direction to Virtus – just as example of the no rules rule. For us the Name came first.
Metaphor: All the World’s a Stage.
Opening Monologue: Lyrical, Memorable, Breaking all the “rules”.
We created a mental picture like a character in a book you can only see in your minds eye – before you see the actor chosen to play him (it is a him) in the visual “stage” version.
Curtain up: The star of the show appears.
The opening scene: The memorable Visual Hook.
We struggled at first, to make the 22 characters (not 8 as advised by the narrow minded) fit with our hand drawn elephant.
It took three published iterations before the integrated customised font was made comfortable for Harry to sit on (yep he got his own name, he’s a pain in the posterior about it – so don’t encourage him). But it was worth it to create the Shape for that first 0.05 second scan.
Back to Naming Undecided about your name?
We are here to guide and support your vision.
Branding’s two halves – Naming and Logo Design – is our foundation business.
We don’t knock out clip art “fiver” AI logos, so why would we put less effort into creating your new name?
Dumbing down the types:
Literal Names: Iron Valve Company Limited.
(What you Make)
Lateral Names: Water Control Company Limited
(What you do)
Heritage Names: James Water & Sons Limited
(Associative)
Compound Names: Wetdirector Limited
(Try hard)
Invented Names: Blue Strawberry Elephant Ltd
(If Harry sold water valves)
“A rose would smell as sweet by any other name”
Would it?
That depends on the location, the context, the competition for attention,
This isn’t naming your first born – it’s more important than that.
Lets talk.
