1. GLOBAL BRANDING & NAME EVALUATION
Created by
Talia Baruch
Localization Strategist | Copywriter
Founder of Copyous
Leading localization | Crafting content
www.copyous.com
2. What is Global Branding?
• In branding, a name means business. We don’t just brand a name; we brand
an experience and image with that name, to become more memorable.
• A global brand is perceived to reflect the same set of values around the world.
• Character communication is a key element of branding and the backbone of a
global branding strategy.
• A McDonald's or Starbucks commercial from the US, Germany, Brazil or
Japan is readily recognized as representing an American McDonald's/
Starbucks, even though the products are produced locally.
• Every company wants its brand to get bigger. The hard part is balancing what
the brand is with a vision of what it would like to be. "
3. What is Name Evaluation?
• Just as a child can be burdened with a horrible name, so too can
a product suffer under poor judgment in naming.
• A localized product should have a name free from negative
associations and a name that can easily be pronounced in the
target market.
• In the pharmaceutical industry naming a product is literally a
matter of life and death. According to the FDA, 13 percent of
medication errors stem from name confusion.
• Name Evaluators generally develop a "name safe" test to make
sure that an anti-depressive does not sound too similar to a
strong tranquilizer, or that the name does not get lost in the
doctor's handwriting.
4. The process of name evaluation
• A client will suggest a list of potential names for their product.
• Global branding team will send a survey to 3 independent in-country linguists for
feedback.
• The survey will include a battery of questions regarding each proposed name,
e.g.: Is the name easy to pronounce/to spell; Does the name trigger any
negative/positive/neutral association?
• Linguists will provide examples to strengthen their argument and will propose an
alternative name that is as close as possible to the client’s pick, but that does not
convey a negative connotation.
• Finally an analysis is compiled assessing the potential strengths and
weaknesses of each name.
• The result is an all-inclusive report catered toward the client’s languages or
dialects. This report explores all of the possible advantages and disadvantages
for every brand name candidate.
5. Landmines in choosing a brand name
Pronunciation issues: When Coca-Cola decided to launch itself in China, it faced
the problem that written language is not phonetic in Mandarin. The company
finally chose a sequence of characters that would sound similar to Coca-Cola
when pronounced and mean "to allow the mouth to rejoice". However, when
read, These characters could mean "bite the wax tadpole" in Mandarin.
Negative connotation: Security door lock: Company launched this product into 14
langs. with the name Oness. Its sound, appearance and connotation worked
perfectly in all 13 markets. However, they had to drop it, because in Israel
Oness means “rape.”
This lady is called for: Corona, the Mexican beer producer, had to negotiate in
different countries to secure its name, which means crown in Spanish. Corona
eventually adapted its name to Coronita in Spain, as a compromise.
6. Landmines in choosing a brand name
Nul Naming for Knol
Knol
Many bloggers are not reacting well to the new Knol by Google.
Knol stands for a "unit of knowledge" and is a "knowledge-sharing
service," which is very close in nature to Wikipedia.
Some feel that the name sounds “like a planet from a sci-fi novel."
Others feel that knol sounds too much like "nul" as in "nothing."
Google does many things right. But perhaps not this time.
7. Landmines in choosing a brand name
Dim name for a bright idea
There are times when a name can fit all your criteria and still be the wrong name for
the product or service. Dimdim, a free web meeting tool aiming to compete with
the likes of LiveMeeting, WebEx and GoToMeeting, is a prime example.
According to founder D.D. Ganguly, the company sat down with 18,000 domain
names and set 5 simple rules:
The dotcom domain name must be available
The name must have high recall
The name must be international
The sound of the name must translate without ambiguity to its spelling
The spelling must translate unambiguously to its pronunciation
Five hours later they named the company Dimdim.
8. Landmines in choosing a brand name
Dim name for a bright idea
• Like Wii, Dimdim is a name that's just asking to be made fun of. And the Wii, at
least, is for gamers. Dimdim is a business service. Wii also has Nintendo's
marketing budget behind it.
• Of course, lots of Web 2.0 products have silly names, and that doesn't stop them
from succeeding. But Flickr, Twitter and Jaiku all have names that relate to what
their service does. Even ooVoo, which scores very high on the silliness scale,
looks like "you view."
9. Landmines in choosing a brand name
Meet Salma—your reformed Barbie
Barbie's revealing clothing is not appropriate for the 1.6 billion Muslim population
worldwide.
An Indonesian designer has come up with an alternative doll named Salma, which
is a Barbie look-alike dressed up in traditional Muslim clothing. The name Salma
is a derivation of the word salamah, meaning “peace. “
Indonesia is the largest Muslim country, thus making it a good starting point for the
new toy. The similarity between Salma and Barbie is so striking that it's unclear
whether it's an authentic Barbie.
Regardless, the Salma doll is marketed as a "Muslim Barbie," which is a trademark
violation unless Mattel doesn't protect their mark.
10. Success stories of fine brand names
in the global marketplace
• Google resorted to re-brand its search engine “Gu Ge” in China, because it is
difficult to pronounce “google” in Mandarine.
• Google registered the “Gu Ge” brand name in China only 7 days before another
company, Gu Ge Technology, did.
• Gu Ge Technology tried to sue Google over ownership of the brand name, but lost
to Google.
11. Success stories of fine brand names
in the global marketplace
Mazda has just announced its latest concept car, the gorgeous Taiki. Taiki means
"atmosphere. " Entirely fitting for a car with sweeping lines, an all-glass canopy,
and appropriate to the Nagare ("flow") concept car from which it evolved. The
name Taiki also sounds like "tai chi," which epitomizes graceful, flowing motion.
Not only that, it has a branded engine called Renesis (which sounds like genesis and
involves technology taken from jet propulsion).
The car has so much going for it in the naming department that it's a pity it's only a
concept car and not available for purchase.
12. New trends in branding globally: Change
your spelling habits
Hyatt chose a name meaning "personal style" for its new chain of "unpretentious, eco-
friendly" hotels -- and may be starting a new trend in alternative spelling by
rendering Andaz as ANdAZ." That's right: instead of mid-word capitals, a trend
we're all familiar with by now, there's a mid-word lower-case letter.
What, one wonders, looking at "ANdAZ," are "AN" and "AZ" and how does the "d"
connect them? Is this one word or two?
The Red Hot Curry blog points out that the Andaz name reverses another trend:
whereas once Indian hotel owners used English names, now an Anglo chain
believes an Indian name will attract the right clientele. Andaz is Hindi, or Urdu, or
both (Nastaliq or Devanagari scripts) for "personal style."
13. New trends in branding globally:
Brand Naming Can Tattoo You
• Tattoos is another trendy way get a brand naming under people's skin.
Companies are not only incorporating tattoo art into their brand names,
but also creating brands that are designed to appeal to people with
tattoos.
• The convenience store chain 7-Eleven has a new energy drink called
Inked, which is aimed at people who either have tattoos or those who
want to think of themselves as the tattoo type.
• Dunlop has offered free tires for years to anyone who will get their Flying
D tattooed to their body.
• General Mills is selling fruit roll-ups that allow kids to create "temporary
tongue tattoos."
• Christian Dior, Tag Heur, Aussiebum, Bling, Benefit Cosmetics are all
looking into creating “tattoo logos" in India, because tattoos are a big part
of Indian culture.
14. Why should localization companies
provide global branding/name
evaluation services?
• One stop shop. A company localizing their SW,
Web, Marketing content will also need consultation
on localizing their product name to secure strong
adaptation to local markets.
• People often come to a brand naming company
after they try to generate it internally and fail.
