It is hard to find.
We fight hard to make the customers understand how hard it is to find a suitable brand name. We cooperate with our partner Defans Patent for many years. We had some success but unfortunately customers don’t believe that to find a brand name must be considered as a project.
It is really hard because circa hundred thousand trademark registration applications are put into process. This amount is as same as the words in Turkish vocabulary. This means any common known words that can a brand name were registered many years ago. We don’t have the
We don’t have luxury of our fathers to take brand names derived from nature or daily life. But we still follow their way. Time of our paps has gone away. Now you can not establish a production facility and sell it to everybody even without a retailer. But this time is over.
While starting to brand consulting business, one of the potential niches in market was naming. That is why I connected with Namelab, which is one of the leader companies in its sector. When I learned that they charges thirty five thousand dollars, I give up my efforts in naming because Turkey has 20 more years to reach that awareness.
Later on, we did some naming business and get some experience. Today we have a special department for naming but still can’t charge more than five thousand dollars. This amount is only acceptable for holdings or group companies. Common entrepreneurs think that it is that simple to find a name. After that trademark registration wars, court procedures start.
So what we propose, what is our solution or why it is not simple and cheap?
First of all a detailed research and brief are musts. The brief must have an underlying positioning logic, because if you don’t have a business route, it is hard to find a brand for your business. The briefing must be detailed by different copy writers, language experts and so on. All naming project must generate at least hundred different alternatives for a single naming. Meanwhile these alternative brand names must be researched for similarity and identically for trademark registration. A company does this business must have brand name pool. Also this pool must be searched for some more alternatives that fit the brief. Also this brand name must be supported by logos. These alternatives must be eliminated by the owner to maximum ten alternatives for global research. After all researches and eleminations, in a month time, last alternatives must be presented to the customer.
Naming presentations must be done alive. Because e-mailings can not emphasis the underlying logic or customers can not understand or accept the new names. People are familiar to old school names. So a live presentation is a must.
When you go for global, it is harder to find a brand name. Especially some Chinese companies took .com domain names and sell them. We recommend to our customers to buy domain names if they are cheaper than two thousand dollars. But same problem appears. Why to pay two thousand dollars for a domain name? But they don’t remember that they spend more than two hundred thousand dollars for store decoration.
If you ask to people if they name their business as google or apple or Microsoft, they will say yes. But it is for now. But before, only one to ten of the entrepreneurs can accept it. Last but not the least, naming, is not taken into concentration as a professional job. But still some visionary bosses have courage to take extraordinary brand names. Hope someday the number of these visionary people increases and Turkey has a chance to produce a global brand name. but unfortunately we don’t have that hope yet…
GÜVEN BORCA
MARKAM DANIŞMANLIK
