Roger Cauvin, Director of Products, discusses why companies struggle with naming products and brands. Common names are risky as they do not distinguish a brand in the market. Instead, names should have incongruity and not directly relate to the category to better stick in people's minds. Word of mouth is also more effective when names spark curiosity or intrigue through elaboration rather than straightforward descriptions. Cauvin cites research supporting these claims and provides his contact information for further discussion.

1. Products and Companies
Members Private Sale
#wesuck
#PCATX13
Roger L. Cauvin
Director of Products
Why We Suck at Naming

3. “Sounds like
a porn site.”

11. “The kiss of death for
an Internet brand is a
common name.”

12. “[A] brand name is a peg
that people use to hang
all the attributes of your
business.”
“The LESS it has to do
with your category, the
better.”

14. Incongruity
Elaboration
Affinity2
Recall1
Word of
Mouth3
1Heckler, S. E. and Childers, J. L., “The Role of Expectancy and Relevancy in Memory for Verbal and Visual Information: What Is
Incongruency?” Journal of Consumer Research, 18, 3, 475-492, 1992.
2Miller, Elizabeth G. and Kahn, Barbara E. Shades of Meaning: The Effect of Color and Flavor Names on Consumer Choice.
Journal of Consumer Research. June 2005.
3Mattsson, Jan and Söderlund, Magnus. Word-of-mouth is more than recommendations. ANZMAC annual conference. ANZMAC :
Australian New Zealand Marketing Association, 2011.

19. @rcauvin
blog.cauvin.org
roger@cauvin.org