Building Brands – Unique Naming Strategy

For nearly 40 years Heckler Associates has played a foundational role in building successful global brands such as Starbucks, Encarta, Qdoba and K2. As a full-service integrated communication design firm, Heckler Associates offers a seamless brand building approach covering all strategic and tactical components.

Unique brand names serve as relevant “empty vessels.” The meaning is filled entirely by your brand equity. Brand names that associate too closely to dictionary words or names that embrace trends and conventions in the marketplace signal the follower’s position. These conventional names reduce the opportunity for distinction and limit assimilation of your brand values. Literal, conventional company or product names also risk compromised legal protection.

The selection of brand names presented here were developed by Heckler Associates. The graphic realizations, except for Encarta® were also developed by Heckler Associates.*

A unique brand name is a powerful tool for building brand equity that you alone will define and own legally and in the minds of your audience. A name is an essential tool for developing brand equity. A unique brand name as a relevant empty vessel, receives, stores and protects all the meaning you develop. A unique name supports an industry leadership position. Conventional and literal names are weakened by an abundance of secondary associations and signal a follower’s position.

Heckler Associates provides proven brand strategies and objective methods to efficiently lead and expedite the company or product naming process, using methods pioneered and refined over 40 years of building global brands.

To Rebrand, or Not Rebrand – That is the Question

Businesses evolve and sometimes brand names that work for one phase may not work for another. The process of determining when and how to adjust brand strategy or rebrand entirely often requires more attention and expertise than management can provide. Heckler Associates proven strategies for companyoffers thorough analysis of name change situations and provides recommendations for achieving success.