What Do You Wear to a Brand Naming Ceremony?
Let’s talk about the over-the-top solemnity of naming workshops. You know the ones. Seven marketers in a sea of cold brew and flip charts, treating a 90-minute brainstorm like the Geneva Convention. All for what? A name that sounds like the distant cousin of a pharmaceutical drug crossed with a vegan café.
I spent last Friday inside a tan-walled room with a client team agonising over whether 'Brindle' felt too colonial or if 'Soppa' was just foreign enough to sound meaningful. No one questioned why we were chasing the same six-note, two-syllable, almost-Scandi rhythm that every failed DTC brand picked in 2023. There were index cards. There were coloured dots. There was a moment someone whispered, genuinely, "What does this name want to be when it grows up?" It was part séance, part hostage situation.
The real issue isn’t taste. It’s algorithmic reasoning. We’ve created an entire process obsessed with ‘available domains’ and ‘verbal symmetry,’ shaving the soul out of the whole exercise. Gone are the days when a brand name had guts. Coffee shops used to be called things like Merv’s. Now it’s all vowel-lite ambiguity and biotech minimalism. Merv didn’t have a tagline. Merv had pancakes.
So here’s my plea. If you ever find yourself hosting a naming session, don’t show up in your agency-issued jumper with a stack of Post-its and the word ‘fizzy’ scrawled in Sharpie. Light a candle. Say a few words. Honour what the name might mean, in the world, one year from now. And if all else fails, just call it Brindle.
I spent last Friday inside a tan-walled room with a client team agonising over whether 'Brindle' felt too colonial or if 'Soppa' was just foreign enough to sound meaningful. No one questioned why we were chasing the same six-note, two-syllable, almost-Scandi rhythm that every failed DTC brand picked in 2023. There were index cards. There were coloured dots. There was a moment someone whispered, genuinely, "What does this name want to be when it grows up?" It was part séance, part hostage situation.
The real issue isn’t taste. It’s algorithmic reasoning. We’ve created an entire process obsessed with ‘available domains’ and ‘verbal symmetry,’ shaving the soul out of the whole exercise. Gone are the days when a brand name had guts. Coffee shops used to be called things like Merv’s. Now it’s all vowel-lite ambiguity and biotech minimalism. Merv didn’t have a tagline. Merv had pancakes.
So here’s my plea. If you ever find yourself hosting a naming session, don’t show up in your agency-issued jumper with a stack of Post-its and the word ‘fizzy’ scrawled in Sharpie. Light a candle. Say a few words. Honour what the name might mean, in the world, one year from now. And if all else fails, just call it Brindle.