2 builders who never spoke to each other

Choose a name that flatters whoever says yes

The name is doing positioning work whether you meant it to or not, and changing it costs nothing next to changing the product. Word it for the person who actually has to be won over, say the exact occasion it is for, and pick the register of the category you want filing in. If the name carries a joke, run the joke through every property you own.

The method

1. 01

   Name the product after the specific place or occasion it is for. A generic product renamed to something concrete can outsell the category leader.

2. 02

   Rename the product in language that appeals to whoever actually has to be won over, and change nothing else about it.

3. 03

   Choose the words that place you in the higher-status category: describe the same thing as elite education rather than as an online course.

4. 04

   Extend the stripped-back joke into every property by labelling each one literally, so the site is called website and the social profile is called twitter page.

What it returned

• 21

  Rachel Lowe was turned down on the show, then released her board game as Destination London. It became the retailer's best selling game of the year, ahead of Monopoly, and she has since shipped 21 variants of it.

• 2018

  Belgian supermarket Delhaize gave its fruit and vegetables playful names for children in June 2018 and sales rose 151%

• Paraphrases Ogilvy's point that buyers pick the image rather than the whiskey

• no name applies the naming gag across its own channels

Sources

• The genius of no name's brandHarry Dry · Marketing Examples · undated
• Reforge and the Strategic Use of LanguageHarry Dry · Marketing Examples · undated
• The Vegetable Name ChangeHarry Dry · Marketing Examples · The Vegetable Name Change · undated
• The 13 Biggest Dragons’ Den Failures That Made MillionsFailory · failory.com · 13) Destination Board Games · undated