X misses the spot

By Louise Thomas, Brand Strategist & Naming Specialist

We love finding the right words for brands, but two recent rebrands & name changes stand out for all the wrong reasons. So, what can we learn from X and Samsung Food?

 Considering your name has about 3 seconds to say an awful lot about you, it’ll come as no surprise that choosing - or changing - your brand name is challenging. Much thought goes into creating meaningful names. People don’t notice great names, because they feel right, are natural, and make sense. But they do notice ‘bad’ names because they either can’t say or spell them, have no idea what they do or keep forgetting them.

X, the platform formerly known as Twitter

I love the confidence of a single letter for a brand name, and all the visual strengths of it. However, no-one apart from Elon, is actually calling X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, X. You just can’t. It needs context, it needs to be explained, and in journalism, it looks like a mistake. Twitter was a great name, it told you all you needed to know about the social media platform and ‘Tweets’ soon became part of our everyday language. But with “X” what should’ve been a short and snappy name, is now so long and complicated, that X has become an embarrassing prefix for Twitter: “X, Twitter, or whatever the hell it’s supposed to be called.”

Whisk became Samsung Food

Unappetising. Corporate. Devoid of personality. Whisk was an AI-powered recipe and meal-planning app launched in 2012. It managed to do what all fledging apps dream of. It scaled up, tripled its revenue, reached more than half a billion recipe interactions a month and was featured as Apple’s App of the Day in 162 countries. Inevitably, it caught the eye of some deep pockets and was acquired by Samsung Next in 2019.

So why, did I just receive an email advising me that they’ve changed the name of their services from Whisk to Samsung Food? Could it be part of their brand strategy and naming architecture? Could there be some legal reason why Whisk was no longer viable? For me, it’s monolithic branding at its worst. It works for Google (Google Play, Google Home), but when you ditch a name with such a juicy character for an uninspiring corporate moniker, a small part of me dies.

So, what can we learn from this?

There is the literal meaning and then all the associations and images a word conjures up. That is why words and names are so powerful. If you’re considering a new name, consider this:

01. Put your customers at the centre of your naming efforts

Know your audience, know the world they live in, the brands they interact with, the brands they aspire to and what’s happening in the competitive landscape. Names are made up of information + emotion. Emotion makes information stick. When you immerse yourself in your customer’s world and understand their wants and needs, you’re in a great position to create more emotive and creative names.

02. Consider what makes a name ‘good’

Brand relevance: words are inextricably part of a brand so choose your words wisely. Does the name you are considering align with your brand strategy? Does it make it easier for your customers to find and choose you? Does it clarify what you do or what the benefit is to customers?

Linguistic merits: Your brand name should be meaningful, memorable and convey the message you want to send. It should evoke emotion and be easy to pronounce and understand. Additionally, it should be unique and not contain words or phrases that can be offensive or confusing in other languages.

Availability: The final and arguably biggest hurdle in naming. You need to be able to register the business name, buy the right web address, get the social handles and possibly apply for the trademark. Chances are the names you love will not be available as a .com so you may need to get creative to secure the domain name you want. 

03. Context is everything

Everyone interprets a word differently. Shaped by their experience. That’s the wonderful thing about English. It’s always evolving and is one of the few languages with a thesaurus. Add to that, when you add imagery or design to a word, it influences how people perceive its meaning. So you need to consider a name from many angles, not just what it means. Say it out loud. How does it sound when you introduce yourself? What might it look like on a LinkedIn post or in a newspaper article, for example?

 And if in doubt, talk to us. We’ve named all sorts of businesses, brands, products and services and would love to help you find the right words for your brand.