What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any name, will it smell as sweet?

APL LESSON 23

IMPORTANCE OF BRAND NAMES

What's in a name? That which we call a rose,

By any other name would smell as sweet.

Thus wrote William Shakespeare in his most famous play ‘Romeo and Juliet’.

But this dictum of the 16th Century no longer holds good in the age of brands and super-brands.

I always tell my students that brand building starts with the brand name! Your name is an extension of your brand, and it can reinforce the value you provide.

Case Study

When Ciza (Cisapride) was introduced by Intas Pharmaceuticals on 16th August 1992, the other brands were from much bigger companies of those days. To name a few:

? Unipride (Torrent)

? Esorid (Sun)

? Prepulsid (Johnson & Johnson)

? Motilax (USVP)

What’s the difference you see in the name Ciza and all the other brands?

The name Ciza was very short and had the letter ‘Z’ in it? The letter ‘Z’ in a brand had power – the power of getting recalled. The letter ‘Z’ stood out in the crowd.

Coincidentally, another brand with a ‘Z’ was the highest selling brand over the world at that time – the early nineties - Zinetac/Zantac.

The original name suggested was Cisa.

When the brand name was ‘market-tested’, the product executive came back and said doctors were mispronouncing the name as ‘ciza’

And that sounded good and even memorable.

“If that is the case,” I said, “let us name it as Ciza.”

Sometimes all it takes is changing one letter of a word to make a great brand name.

Our designer at Intas too did an excellent job on the font. In italica, the z had a long tail and the whole brand name gave a feeling of motion - and Ciza a prokinetic, synced well with its action.

The font color was deep ocean blue.

And the brand Ciza took Intas to the next level.

And immediately the next produced launched by Intas was Zen (carbamazepine) which also went on to become a super-duper hit, till struck by DPCO.

The other super hits with the letter ‘Z’ world over were Zyprexa, Zyrtec, and Zestril.

Will the charm and the magic of the letter ‘Z’ in a brand name continue?

This post is inspired by Amit Khanna, a reader of my book - "HOW TO MAKE DOCTORS YOUR BRAND ADDICT: 13 UNSHAKABLE LAWS OF PHARMA BRANDING

Vivek Hattangadi and Prof. @DrSuniel Deshpande