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Episode
131

A Guide to Brand Naming

An interview with
Rob Meyerson

Introduction

Very often, designers work closely with clients early on in the development of their companies. From time to time they may want extra strategic support, such as coming up with a brand name.

To discuss the Brand Naming Process I’m joined by Rob Meyerson, the author of the book ‘Brand Naming’, The Complete Guide to Creating a Name for Your Company, Product, or Service. Rob is the founder of Heirloom, an independent brand strategy and identity firm, as well as host of the Podcast, How Brands are Built.

In this episode we’ll discuss why a good name matters, how to come up with great name ideas, narrowing down your options, presenting names to your client, launching a name and more!

Rob Meyerson Interview Transcription

Ian Paget: Rob, it's really great to have you on the podcast. I'm going to jump straight into a juicy question because you've got a new book out called Brand Naming, and I want to talk about brand naming. So as an opening question, why does a good name matter?

Rob Meyerson: Great question. And I start the book there actually, because I do feel that as a namer, I should be able to answer that question convincingly and I know that a lot of people reading the book may have to answer that question. So if they are an agency person, they may have to explain to clients why it's important. If they're working in house, they may have to explain to their leadership why they should invest time and money in a brand name and not just spend an hour in a conference room brainstorming and be done with it. So I think there are three big reasons that a brand name is important. First is just recognising how powerful language is. And we know this intuitively in our lives, but it's helpful to just remind ourselves that great speeches, great books, great song lyrics really impact us in very emotional and deep ways. And I'm not necessarily saying that every brand name does that, but a brand name is language just as these other things are like language.