As of today, 29 September 2016, The Walt Disney Co has a $149 billion dollar market cap.
That’s many zeros: $149,000,000,000!
I was recently at Disney Land in Hong Kong, and Disney knows a thing or two about brand building by creating experiences.
(I’ve also had the same experience in Anaheim, Florida and Tokyo.)
And I think maybe a correlation between creating experiences and their market cap 😉
Brand building by creating experiences could be discussed for eternity and all the nuances never fully explored, so let’s just pick one sliver…
Brand names, names and naming.
…So, right now I have the song Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious from Mary Poppins stuck in my head.
Strange right?
But this is an important brand lesson…
Having an unforgettable or notable name is really important for your brand.
A brand name is arguably one of the assets that provide you with the most return on investment and leverage.
Something that could take a day to find can create years-and-years of perceived value.
A brand name is a condensed and distilled concept of the essentials features or benefits of your product, service or solution.
It goes without saying, if you have a new brand you are launching and trying to establish, you automatically do not have brand recognition salience in the market.
You are starting from scratch.
So in order to have the best chance of recognition, you need to be smart about your brand name.
However, as you can guess, most brands get their name wrong!
That’s a big call I know, but after this guide, I hope to convince you of this claim.
So how do they get it wrong?
They name their brand something clever or worse still confusing.
When prospects and customers spend money on your product, service or solution, it’s highly important to them.
They are trying to solve a pain or reach a gain.
Solving their problems and getting results is serious to them.
Spending money represents changing one currency, such as time and labour, into another, that is money in exchange for a product, service or solution.
People’s time and labour, and thus their money, are really important to them and they treat it that way.
A clever or confusing name doesn’t do anything to building trust with your prospects and customer that your brand can solve their pain or gain.
So you are probably thinking how do you get a name, right?
We’ll discuss that in turn, but let’s first look at some theory…
Humans have something called the phonological loop.
The phonological loop is a short-term, verbal memory system in the auditory cortex of the brain.
The auditory cortex is located in the temporal lobe.
It acts as a “recording device” that records incoming auditory data continuously coming into the ear.
Sound enters the ear and bounces around before it is processed by the brain.
From the phonological loop, the brain processes the information and decides what to do with it.
It could be forgotten or stored in longer-term memory.
Sometimes, some sounds stay in short-term memory for longer periods of time than others.
Why is this?
Those sounds are not automatically processed, but they are repeated as if they were.
This is a strange phenomenon!
Dr. James Kellaris from University of Cincinnati discovered what is called “Ear Worms.”
Earworms have audible properties that stimulate the phonological loop more than other audible propertie, and stay in the short term memory for longer periods of time than others.
They capture attention and repeat in the phonological loop (i.e. in your head) for about eight seconds.
It’s involuntary.
Self-repetition does not remove the Earworms, but rather makes it stay longer in the ear.
It’s like an insect bite – the more you scratch, the more itches.
The loop scratches the “itch” by replaying it over and over.
The more an Earworms plays, the more it plays!
The more they scratch, the more they itch.
This is why you say “I have that song stuck in my head”, just like I did with Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious from Mary Poppins.
This is also why a DJ pulls the music out for a slight second to allow a sing-a-long; when you hear a song, you can fill in the rest even after the song stops playing.
It keeps your brain busy when thoughts are idle, stressed or tired.
Earworms could also be called the unscientific terms of: “repetunitis” and “melody mania.”
It’s clear that the longer sounds stays in the phonological loop, the higher the chance of being remembered, or better still, not being forgotten.
The latter, not being forgotten, is more insidious as it exists and needs to be forgotten, rather than it simply existing and needing to be recalled.
It takes less cognitive power.
So how do you create a brand name where the sound stays in the phonological loop and is really hard for prospects and customers to forget?
Let’s discuss how to create a notable & unforgettable name.
As we have learned, it is possible we need to extend the time the sound stays in the phonological loop.
Here is how to do that and thus create Ear Worm for your brand name.
It’s important to note that humans communicate via speech for far longer than they do in written form.
This evolutionary fact means humans understand speech through hearing much more effectively and efficiently than in the written form, such as a logo or slogan.
Someone can be illiterate and still communicate, but it’s rare for a situation in reverse.
What this means in terms of brand names, is that the name should sound good before it looks good as a logo.
Logos don’t get into your head like songs and song lyrics do – they are easy to forget.
This is the phonological loop in action.
But logos have their place, and we’ll cover them shortly.
Here are some devices that help Ear Worms and name recall…
Start with the benefit, result or outcome your prospects and customers want.
Document all these words that relate to benefits, results or outcomes.
Next, take the list you just created and gave each word an emotional value on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the most and 1 being the least.
How much emotional power does each word have?
For example, the words “like” and “love” have very different emotional power when you think and say them.
Next, discard all words that have a score of five or below.
Document emotional value of those words.
Next, look at your list of words and see if you can link any of them together, so they still make sense using the following Ear Worm devices.
These devices make Ear Worms even harder to forget:
- Repetition;
- Rhyme;
- Alliteration;
- Association; and
- Rhythm.
Here they are…
Repetition & Exposure: Repetition is using the same words more than once, to help with clarity and exposure.
Repetition of words creates predictability of what will come next.
It creates a familiarity.
The Repetition Effect, as described in the book The Most Important Graph in the World by Tony Buzan, says the brain will remember things that are repeated often enough.
This is why repetitive advertising works.
To quote William Rastetter: “The first time you say something, it’s heard, the second time, it’s recognised, and the third time, it’s learned.”
The story of the Three Little Pigs is a good example of this.
A variation of Repetition could also be Rhyme and Alliteration…
Rhyme: Rhyme is a repetition of similar or same sounds in more than two words.
This is commonly the last syllables or end of words.
Rap songs are a simple example of this.
Alliteration: In comparison to Rhyme, Alliteration is a repetition of similar or same sounds in more than two words.
But, usually, this occurs in the first consonant of the start of words.
Association: An association is a connection or link between something.
The Association Effect, as described in the book The Most Important Graph in the World by Tony Buzan, says the brain will remember things that have associations, connections and links to other things in memory.
In regards to naming, associate powerful words with famous people, places or things.
So, can you use the same first or last name or juxtapose them?
Rhythm: Rhythm or beats include the same number of syllables.
Songs or jingles with a rhythm or beat are easy to remember.
I’ll discuss brand jingles shortly.
These five naming devices help addictive and play over in your prospects and customers head.
And of course, an addiction is an impulsive action in rewarding stimuli, despite adverse consequence.
An Ear Worm!
Disney pays much attention to detail; it’s worth $149 billion to them – they use some of these tools in the most obscure parts of the experience they create: from the boats to the shops in each Land.
If Disney knows the value of naming, maybe you should think about how important it is too!
And yes, I get the irony of how unmarketable the name Orren Prunckun is.
But alas, my parents weren’t marketers 😉