Brand Identity
by Brad VanAuken

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Brand Naming  |  The Importance of Color

Brand Naming

Brand naming is extremely important. Many readers are probably working with brands that already have been named, but in case you are not, here are a few pointers on naming brands:

• People only refer to a person or product using one, or at the most, two names. For instance, I am either Brad or Brad VanAuken. No one calls me Alan Bradley VanAuken (with the exception of my mother, who called me this when she was upset with me when I was a boy). It is just too hard to remember, too cumbersome to say, and just unnecessary. Likewise, a car is either a Taurus or a Ford Taurus. People say, “I drive a Honda” or “I drive a Honda Accord.” Few say, “I drive a Honda Accord EX.” People occasionally can remember three levels of names – but rarely more. Saturn is simple. Chrysler New Yorker Fifth Avenue and Oldsmobile Cutlas Sierra are less easy to remember (and can anyone remember what company makes these cars?) How is a Chrysler New Yorker Fifth Avenue different from a Chrysler New Yorker Salon? How is an Oldsmobile Cutlas Sierra different from an Oldsmobile Cutlas Supreme orhow are both of them different from an Oldsmobile Toronado or an Oldsmobile 88 Royal?It gets very confusing very quickly.


• Products that run into trouble are those that have multiple levels of names. For instance, Hallmark co-produced social expression software with Microsoft. Greetings Workshop was from Microsoft and Hallmark Connections (in some cases, this was a sub-set of another suite of products from Microsoft with additional names). What did the consumer remember? What did they ask for? Did each consumer use the same name? It might have been easier to call it “Hallmark Greetings Workshop (brought to you by Microsoft)” or “Microsoft Greetings Workshop (featuring Hallmark cards).”


• Coined names (such as Xerox, Kodak, etc.) are preferred if you have sufficient resources to build their meaning. Coined names are distinct and can be designed to be easy to read, write and pronounce. It is unlikely that any other brand will be confused with yours if yours has a coined name. Because coined names require significant communication over time to build their meaning, they are best reserved for parent brands or other brands that are extremely important to the organization and that will be around for a very long time.


• Many organizations opt for associative descriptive names, which may be partly descriptive and usually allude to a key brand benefit. Examples include Amazon, Sir Speedy, Road Runner, Lean Cuisine, Sprint, BrandForward, Die Hard, Aris Vision Institute. These names tend to work quite well and deliver the added benefit of immediately alluding to the brand's benefit. If you want to get into a product or business quickly with a name that helps reinforce the product's or business' primary benefit, while still maintaining some level of uniqueness, this is the preferred naming option.


• Generic or descriptive names are least desirable. They are not distinctive in consumers' minds and they can't be protected legally. Interestingly, many online companies with generic names have gone out of business, like Auctions.com, Business.com, Buy.com, Computer.com, eToys.com, Food.com, Furniture.com, Garden.com, Mall.com, Mortgage.com, Pets.com, Stamps.com, etc. (Source: The Wall Street Journal as quoted in emarketing magazine's April 2001 issue, page 52.) (So much for all those once exorbitantly expensive URLs!)


• Generic descriptors are frequently used for sub-brands, when you want most of the credit to go to the parent brand. For instance, at Element K our branding structure features generic descriptor sub-brands because (a) Element K is a new brand that we need to build quickly, (b) our resources are too limited to build multiple brands and, most importantly, (c) we are touting a blended solution across all of our products and businesses:

Did you know?

Suggestive brand names assist with recall of brand benefits suggested by the names but inhibit recall of other subsequently advertised brand benefits.

(Source: Keller, Kevin Lane, Susan E. Heckler and Michael J. Houston, “The Effects of Brand Name Suggestiveness on Advertising Recall.” Journal of Marketing Vol. 62 (January 1998), pp. 48-57.)

In summary, coined names are used for products and services that are distinctive, that provide sustainable competitive advantages and that will receive substantial marketing support over time. Associative descriptive names are used for important products or services, but primarily those that need to have their meaning built quickly or that will not receive the sustained level of marketing support required of coined names. Generic or descriptive names are reserved for non-mission-critical sub-brands.

The Importance of Color

Color is an important consideration in your brand identity system. Colors have a significant impact on people's emotional state. They also have been shown to impact people's ability to concentrate and learn. They have a wide variety of specific mental associations. In fact, the effects are physiological, psychological, and sociological. For instance:

• Non-primary colors are more calming than primary colors.
• Blue is the most calming of the primary colors, followed closely by a lighter red.
• Test takers score higher and weight lifters lift more in blue rooms.
• Blue text increases reading retention.
• Yellow evokes cheerfulness. Houses with yellow trim or flower gardens sell faster.
• Reds and oranges encourage diners to eat quickly and leave. Red also makes food more appealing and influences people to eat more. (It is no coincidence that fast food restaurants almost always use these colors.)
• Pink enhances appetites and has been shown to calm prison inmates.
• Blue and black suppress appetites.
• Children prefer primary colors. (Notice that children's toys and books often use these colors.)
• Forest green and burgundy appeals to the wealthiest 3 percent of Americans and often raises the perceived price of an item.
• Orange is often used to make an expensive item seem less expensive.
• Red clothing can convey power.
• Red trim is used in bars and casinos because it can cause people to lose track of time.
• White is typically associated with cool, clean and fresh.
• Red is often associated with Christmas and orange with Halloween and Thanksgiving.
• Red and black are often associated with sexy and seductive and are favored by porn sites.
• Black clothes make people look thinner.
• Black is also associated with elegance and sophistication. It also seems mysterious.
• Black is the favorite color of Goths.

Colors also have a functional impact on readability, eye-strain, ability to attract attention, ability to be seen at night, etc. This is important in choosing colors for signing, website pages, prints ads, and other marketing media.

• The most visible color is yellow.
• The most legible of all color combinations are black on yellow and green on white followed by red on white.
• It is no surprise that most traffic signs use these color combinations.
• Black on white is the easiest to read, on paper, and on computer screens.
• Hard colors (red, orange and yellow) are more visible and tend to make objects look larger and closer. They are easier to focus upon. They create excitement and cause people to over-estimate time.
• Soft colors (violet, blue and green) are less visible and tend to make objects look smaller and further away. They aren't as easy to focus upon. They have a calming effect, increase concentration, and cause people to under-estimate time.

Usually, it is advantageous for a brand to consistently “own” certain colors, which provide an additional recognition cue. The George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film in Rochester, New York has taken a different, but equally effective approach. They intended to communicate that they are a fun and vibrant organization that features much more than artistic black and white photography. So, the “e” icon in their logo appears in a rainbow of colors. Each business card features the logo with a different color. The name itself always only appears in black and white.

Obviously, colors are an important part of any brand identity system. Testing the affect of a new brand identity system's colors is well advised. It is important to consider that color associations will vary by individual, and especially culture, due to the cultural context and previous experiences with the colors. All of the impacts of colors are equally true of music, scents and sounds. For instance, studies have identified that music has an impact on supermarket sales, mental concentration, achievement on standardized tests, factory productivity, clerical performance and staff turnover, among other things.

Favorite Colors of American Consumers

• Blue
• Red
• Green
• White
• Pink
• Purple
• Orange
• Yellow

Primary source: “Color Psychology: Meanings and Effects of Colors” 5/17/01.