Mar. 3, 2009 at 3:00pm

What's in a name?

Posted by Shari Campbell in Branding
Comments (1)

Plenty! Not so much. Which is it?

This mish-mash of thoughts rumbled through my brain recently as our agency worked with a client to name an innovative, new environmental education center. Our client was weeks away from breaking ground on the new facility and had yet to name it.

This assignment would be way easier, I mumbled to myself, if we were naming a new Franciscan Health System hospital. For starters, Franciscan has criteria. It names its hospitals after a patron saint. And since its last naming project involved a new hospital, two-thirds of the naming issue was solved before they ever started considering names: St. ______________ Hospital.

If you’ve ever struggled to name a new facility — or will be considering such a task soon — I offer up a few suggestions:

1. Think about the target audience. Is this audience internal (your own employees), external (customers, clients, visitors) or both? Place the priority on the external audience, the folks you need to attract to your new breast health center, medi-spa or wellness center. Make your name work for them. After all, they are the customer.

2. Think about the function or service performed by your new facility. Everyone knows what a hospital is, so that descriptor alone solved 99 percent of the naming issue for the new St. Anthony Hospital. Gets a lot more difficult if you’re naming a wellness center or an environmental education center.

I love the approach that Olympia’s Hands-On Children’s Museum took years ago. By adding the simple phrase “hands on” to its name, the organization clearly told its target audience, kids and their parents, “this ain’t your grandmother’s museum!” Success has continued to follow this fledgling organization in Olympia,Wash. and it will soon break ground on an amazing new facility, one that will rival and surpass others in much larger towns.

3. Think you will be the next Google? Google’s success is undeniable. But I’d argue the company has been wildly successful because of its second-to-none search engine and the continued role it plays in developing leading internet technologies and services.

How do you capture the attention of your target audience with something relevant and meaningful?

Start with the name.

Comments (1)

Great tips, Shari. Naming for multiple audiences is challenging. I would also recommend that checking for available URLs during the name selection process can get in the way of a good name. Come up with the name first and you'll find a way to create a meaningful Web address.
1 | Left by Lori Briggs | Mar. 4, 2009 at 3:04pm