How Brands Are Built

Coming early 2024: the SIXTH edition of Designing Brand Identity,?Alina Wheeler's iconic, comprehensive guide to the world of brands and branding. This edition features: ? 50+ ALL-NEW case studies ? 100+ branding subjects ? 400+ quotes from experts and executives ? 800+ images, diagrams, and examples ? A bold cover design by Eddie Opara of?Pentagram Pre-order today. Visit Amazon (https://amzn.to/3rhDCsK) or dbibook.com to learn more. And stay tuned for details. #designingbrandidentity?#DBI6

Looking for an opportunity to pick up some branding knowledge and actionable advice? Join us for BrandersFest 2024, a FREE, virtual event from the team at Branders Magazine, the week of October 7. The event runs all week, with a presentation each day at noon, Eastern Time. I'll kick things off on day one, speaking about the branding process. On the next four days, you'll get to hear from: - Matt Davies ?? on brand strategy - Terri Goldstein on visual identity - Craig Dubitsky (founder/CEO at happy?) on brand experience - A panel hosted by Steven Picanza ???? featuring Cybell Jones of SEGD, Joanne Chan of Turner Duckworth, and Cristián Saracco of Allegro 234 . Learn more at https://lnkd.in/eK_J9m6X And if there's something you're interested in learning more about, whether it's from me or one of the other speakers at this event, leave a note in the comments or send us a message.

Thanks to Jack Wimmer of Monika for answering a few of "tough questions" about naming and AI for this written interview on my blog, How Brands Are Built. The idea of using AI to replicate human creativity is certainly not new to me. In a cognitive science class at Indiana University Bloomington, I created and trained a neural network to write music. That was over 20 years ago. (I'm pretty sure I used an audio cassette to play the music for my class. Yeah, I'm getting kinda old.) Obviously, AI has changed a bit since then. Generative AI has taken the world by storm, thanks in part to OpenAI's 2022 release of ChatGPT. But if you've ever tried asking ChatGPT to name a company or product, you've likely been disappointed with the results. That's *not* what Jack and Monika are doing—instead, they've developed "a suite of independent models" that employ AI in ways designed to mimic what human namers might do. (For more on what human namers might do, check out Brand Naming or the free "How to Generate Names" ebook on the How Brands Are Built shop.) I think AI still has a long way to go before it really does a significant chunk of the work human namers do. So much of naming is about analyzing the context for the name, determining the viability of various options, and building the confidence—and consensus—required to make highly subjective decisions. Even at Monika, that work is still done by humans. (You can read more about my take on all this here: https://lnkd.in/g9fmn8GD.) But realizing the potential of AI in this space will take innovators like Jack, and I'm excited to learn more about what he's doing at Monika. I'll certainly be watching closely, and can't wait to hear where their big experiment takes them next. If you're curious, read the interview here: https://lnkd.in/gp7i2BBn

Last week, I posted a "naming experiment" on Instagram. Respondents guessed whether some San Francisco Bay Area breakfast restaurants were rated $, $$, or $$$ (according to Yelp). I just looked through the results, and... Wow!! People nailed it. Seems like they could get a good sense of how pricey these restaurants are based on their names alone. The mean "priciness scores" for the restaurants line up perfectly with the ratings on Yelp. Even more impressively, the two cheapest restaurants got mostly $ votes, the most expensive got mostly $$$ votes, and the two in the middle got mostly $$ votes. All Star Café was apparently the "easiest" one to guess right on; over 72% of respondents accurately selected the $ price range. The two $$ restaurants were a little tough (not too surprising), and SPQR sounded cheap to some people (see last slide for a note on that name). How did you do? If you got all six right, leave a ????♂? in the comments. Nice work!! P.S. Wanna see more nerdy naming stuff? Check out the Brand Names Report from earlier this year: https://lnkd.in/gjGU6GNH

The Brand Builders Summit last week was a firehose of branding insights and perspective. If you missed some of it (totally understandable!), you can still access recordings of everything by buying a Power Pass (https://lnkd.in/grUYRHmr). Here are some of the comments and DMs about my talk, Making Names Memorable, which was ostensibly about naming but ventured into the bigger question of how we can make *brands* more memorable—arguably the most important thing a brand can be. I've heard/seen so many positive comments about other talks and parts of the Summit, too, and can't wait to get caught up this week. A big thank you to Jacob for creating the event. (He'll see this in a couple of weeks when he wakes up from a well-earned nap.) And to everyone who checked out my talk and live Q&A!! ??

Naming is tough!!! (So is creating original content.) As I wrote in my 2021 book, Brand Naming (https://amzn.to/3X4t1Nx), what makes a name good depends on the context and underlying strategy. That said, factors that can contribute to the strength of a good name fall into three areas: 1. Strategic. If relevant for the audience and the project, you might want the name to express a particular idea or evoke a specific emotion. You'll also probably want your name to be somewhat flexible and distinctive (especially if it's a company name). 2. Creative. Whether a name is "creative" is pretty suggestive, but a few questions to ask yourself are whether the name is memorable, whether it sounds good, and whether it looks good (when written out). These are still subjective questions, but may be easier to answer than "Is it creative?". 3. Technical. This is a big part of what makes naming so hard. It's not enough for the name to be creative and fit the strategy. It'll have to jump through some hoops. Namely, look for names that are legally "available" (check the trademark database, search on Google, and ask a lawyer), linguistically viable, and relatively easy to spell and pronounce. I'm not sure I'd call it "secret sauce," but it's an idea that might help put you on the right path to a great brand name. Unfortunately, it's also an idea that a big branding account decided to post as if it was their original idea—not once, but twice. Don't do that.

This Brand Builders Summit that Jacob Cass ?? has cooked up starts in about 12 hours with talks from me, Stephen Houraghan, Sarah Robb, Matt Davies ??, and others becoming available to watch on demand. Then the live Q&A sessions start. If you're not one of the nearly 20,000 people who've picked up a free ticket, you can do that here: https://lnkd.in/gn_Cuu4J Once you've got your free ticket, you can also opt to buy the Power Pass. What's a Power Pass, you ask? Well, that's what this post is all about. Jacob posted a list of what's included, so I went in and marked up the things I'm most excited about. Which items sound most interesting to you? Regardless, I hope you'll check out my (FREE) talk, and come to the Q&A session if you have questions. Hope to see you there!

Crikey! The sixth edition of Designing Brand Identity just hit #1 on Amazon Australia's Best Seller list. As an American, I had about half a dozen stereotypes to choose from here. ChatGPT couldn't make a Paul Hogan lookalike, so we ended up with the kangaroo. Apologies to Reagan Mackrill, Jacob Cass ??, Tim Riches, Robert Nowland, Jeremy Mura—the whole country, really. Anyway, thanks, Australia!! Visit Amazon or your local bookstore to learn more. https://lnkd.in/gmsJmCuq

Jana Straiton is Founder & Managing Director of Renegade Marketing Agency in London and previously held senior marketing roles at Adobe and PayPal, among others. She recently posted: "Here is one of my favourite [marketing books] and an absolute go-to for me, Designing Brand Identity by Alina Wheeler and Rob Meyerson." Thank you, Jana!! P.S. Jana's teaching a marketing leadership course in just a few weeks. Follow Jana to learn more. P.P.S. Designing Brand Identity is Amazon's #1 best-selling branding and logo design book in the UK right now!! How many copies did you buy, Jana??

When Jacob invited me speak at Brand Builders Summit 2024, I thought long and hard about what my presentation should be. I didn't want to repeat something I'd presented before. I wanted it to be useful, interesting, and new—and something I felt qualified to speak to. I landed on this idea of memorability, one factor of strong brand names that I mention in Brand Naming. Whenever I talk to clients about what makes a name memorable, I list things: It could mean the name is short, sounds familiar, rhymes, etc. But I wanted to dig deeper. That led me to some research on what makes words memorable, how memory works, and why some ideas are "stickier" than others. After reviewing sources ranging from scientific papers to Chip and Dan Heath's 2007 book, Made to Stick, I distilled what I learned to five factors of memorability. And my hope is that they apply to brands in general, not just brand names. Tune in on August 27 to learn more. And check out the other amazing speakers and events at the Brand Builders Summit. Pick up a FREE ticket or upgrade to the Power Pass for exclusive content and downloads here: https://lnkd.in/gn_Cuu4J