Building brands, one story at a time

| HB Naming Methodology |

Building brands, one story at a time

Creating the Flight Plan

• Define the time and resources of the project• Determine the names and positions of the client team• Establish the key decision makers

• Who will make the final decision?• How are they going to be involved in the process?

• Schedule the final meeting• Schedule HB team brainstorming sessions

Goal: To initiate the engagement

Building brands, one story at a time

The Schedule

Goal: To establish due dates and the calendar

Building brands, one story at a time

Modify depending on

the scope of the project

Assign each step a certain

due date

If there are no deliverables for

a length of time, consider how to build in client contact

If there are multiple key decision

makers, leave time for both parties to be able to respond

Building brands, one story at a time

The Takeoff

• Example • To see an example of a Kickoff agenda, look at the

document [Agenda – ECS 072209.doc]

Goal: To create an understanding between HB and the Client team on expectations, the calendar and goals of the project

Building brands, one story at a time

Goal: To maintain the Client’s needs at the forefront of the process

Create a Client Requirement List

• These requirements should be gathered and clarified at the Kickoff Meeting

• Should be both a document and a large piece of paper• List of Client needs, wants, emotions, etc.

• Should be distributed to all of the HB team• Should be referred to consistently through the process

Building brands, one story at a time

Up in the Clouds-Terms

Goal: To generate a list of words that

are associated with the client

Encourage team to keep

possible names to themselves

Industry terms

This brainstorm is not for

names, just terms

What the company does

Emotions they want to evoke

Building brands, one story at a time

Designate to one HB team member

Present this list at the next meeting Examples

Competitor names

Similar names in other markets

Goal: To know the names that are impossible to

use and must be avoided

Avoid the Turbulence

Research “No-Go” Names

Building brands, one story at a time

Up in the Clouds #2- Names

• The number of brainstorming sessions will be dictated by the breadth of the project

• Vary the brainstorming sessions• Smaller groups• Individual brainstorms• Lengths of time• Locations

Goal: To create a list of all desirable and appropriate names for the client

Building brands, one story at a time

Goal: To narrow potential name list

Refueling #1

• As a group, decide on top candidates• Refer to the client’s list of requirements

• Justify each name with considerations based on that list

Building brands, one story at a time

Goal: To establish the availability of prospective names

Establishing Landing Sites

• Preliminary check for conflicts • Other companies• Trademarks

• http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=searchss&state=4009:1c5tbv.1.1

• URLs• www.networksolutions.com

Building brands, one story at a time

Continue to FlyBrainstorming Sessions

Building brands, one story at a time

Goal: To narrow potential name list

Refueling #2

• As a group, decide on top candidates from the new list• Refer to the client’s list of requirements

• Justify each name with considerations based on that list

• Revaluate Round 1 Names based on availability

Building brands, one story at a time

Execution

Goal: To narrow the list of names to those that are most appropriate for the client and aligned

with the client’s requirements

Work as a group to determine meanings,

associations and variations that ill be

presented

A name has different meanings to different people. It is best to

present all iterations of a name

Finalize Names

Building brands, one story at a time

Circle for Landing

Goal: Visually produce a presentation that highlights both the name finalists and the project’s process to the client

Building brands, one story at a time

Goal: To lead the client team in a discussion about the potential names

Launch the Final Presentation

• Two hour in-person meeting to discuss and refine, or produce additional contenders• Make sure key decision makers can be at the meeting

Post Sell

Purpose: Get them to

convince themselves

Go negative

Stress the need to

think of all aspects

What will objections

be?

Building brands, one story at a time

Goal: To reaffirm HB’s work and to maintain contact

Follow-up with Client

• Thank client for its business• Stress the benefits of the new name

• Again go negative

Building brands, one story at a time

Goal: To learn from the process and to enable the application of that knowledge to the next project

Reflection

• Gather the HB team and discuss the positives and negatives of the project• Vary the structure of the post-mortem from previous

discussions• Don’t always revert to “5 good things/5 bad things”

• Re-evaluate this methodology and make changes as necessary

Building brands, one story at a time

Notes

• Keep a running excel database of all mentioned terms and names• A laptop during brainstorming sessions would be useful• Assign one person to be the collector and organizer of this

database

• Big paper tablets are often useful and save time. Lists and ideas from previous sessions can be revisited easily and don’t need to be recopied to a whiteboard