It takes a lot of work to get a perfect name for a brand. Whether you are launching a new product or reinventing an existing brand, marketers usually spend several months analyzing data, conducting interviews, and conducting research to find the best name that can distinguish them from competitors.
However, no matter how thorough your work is, if your research focuses on the domestic market, you are likely to encounter challenges when expanding internationally. How can marketers prepare for the brand’s global success from the start?
Consider the brand’s global shelf life
The longer you expect a brand name to circulate globally, the more you need to carefully choose a name that takes into account international factors. Does the contribution of international customers account for a significant proportion of today’s revenue? Do you think the ratio will increase in the future? If so, you will definitely want to consider other markets in the decision-making process If so, you will definitely want to consider other markets in the decision-making process.
If overseas sales are not the first priority, then today is not so urgent. But even if this is not a priority, considering these issues now can help you avoid additional re-branding efforts in the future. Otherwise, if you really choose to expand internationally, you will most likely understand it too late that the name you chose is not suitable for your future market.
Collect opinions from international customers
You first need to make a list of candidate names for your brand or product. When doing the matter, the domestic market and mother tongue are very good, but if possible, try to involve people with international experience from the beginning. Their early investment can help you find more global feasible options.
Once you have a few candidate names, it’s time to do some qualitative research: Interview future customers in the international market to let you understand how different choices sound in different cultural and language contexts.
If you are not sure which markets to consider, start with the country with the most customers today. If you don’t have any customers abroad, you can research the largest global market in your industry. If this fails, then try to look at the countries where your competitors or neighboring industry companies operate the most.
In addition, if you don’t have ready-made international customers to interview, the next best thing is to ask potential customers—people who fit the general description of potential customers. If this is not possible, then consider contacting business partners operating in your target market to obtain their opinions or contacts.
Here are the research questions you can ask:
Is this name easy to pronounce in other languages? The more catchy the better. Remember, pronunciations in other languages often add new meanings, so you need advice from local market experts. For example, Tide’s Chinese brand name is “Tide”, which not only sounds similar to Tide in sound, but also literally means “get rid of dirt”. Reebok means “Reebok” in Chinese, which means “agile pace”. Marketers usually worry about consistency between different languages, but brand names don’t necessarily need to sound the same in every language. Heineken’s Chinese name is “xili”, which sounds different from the English name completely, but it translates to “the power of happiness”.
What does this name mean in your target culture? Through a simple survey or interview with people in your company’s most important country, you can quickly discover whether the candidate name has any embarrassing or embarrassing connotations. You can also find out whether certain brand names have positive connotations that you might not realize, or whether they sound similar to other well-known brands.
In addition, even in markets where the language is the same as the company’s mother tongue, it is important to consider the cultural segmentation within the target audience. Both Nike and Ben and Jerry’s products have “black and tan” in their names, but they didn’t realize that the term was a great offense to Irish customers. Both companies removed their products for this reason eventually.
What other name would you suggest? This is my favorite part of the whole process. Usually, if you just explain the purpose of the product and share a few key concepts that you want to associate with it, your target customers will provide you with some alternatives that they might call good. These choices may not only be very suitable for international customers, but also for your domestic market, because the true voice of the customer may resonate with the target market more than what your marketing team is vacuuming.
Understand the prospects of search engine optimization (SEO)
Once you have a good understanding of the most popular candidate names, it is time to consider the impact of SEO in each target country or language. Try to find a brand name that is unique enough so that your company can quickly become the most popular search result for the term.
For example, SEO expert and technical founder Rand Fishkin chose SparkToro as his company’s name because he knew that this name would provide SEO advantages in his target market. Be sure to conduct the search feasibility exercise in each of the most potential markets, because SEO may vary greatly in different regions.
As part of this research, you need to determine the brand network assets needed to support the brand. Are the domain names, social media accounts, and other online channels you want to obtain really available? Think about your current marketing strategy and your future plans thoroughly. If SEO is a major part of your strategy, then the brand name you choose must prevent people in the largest market from logging in to other websites or social channels when searching for the name.
Obtain legal information
Now that you have collected customer opinions and conducted an online survey, a few potential names are likely to stand out. Once you are confident about the global viability and online marketing potential of these names, please consult your legal team for advice on trademarks and intellectual property.
Usually, the legal team does not want to step in until you decide on the final name, because international trademark research will consume a lot of time and resources-but it is important to ensure that your legal basis is comprehensive. Ask your legal team if they prefer to get the full list of candidates earlier, or get involved after you have compiled a short list, or wait until you have made the final choice before participating.
Return to customers
Finally, choosing a name suitable for the international scale is an iterative process. You will think that you have found a great name until you find that the name has unpleasant connotations in one of your biggest markets. Then, you will find another winning name, but you will realize that you cannot get some of the key network performance or social media tools you need. You may find yourself having to start from scratch and come up with a whole new list of candidates. But rest assured, the time spent on this is worth the money.
Although it may be tempting to quickly choose a name suitable for the domestic market and native language, remember that today’s small decision will affect your future international development greatly. Designing anything on a global scale—a process, a product, or a brand name—always requires more forward thinking, but if you invest such time now, it will guarantee your marketing content, domain name, publicity, and your Many other investments in own brands will never go out of style.
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