Brand Naming with Lexicon's David Placek | In Conversation with Focus Lab

What's up everybody. I'm excited to share this video with you today. I had the absolute pleasure of sitting down with David Placek.

He is the founder of Lexicon Branding, the masters in all things naming. So a very seasoned 39 year old business naming giant organizations. Many of them you know, such as Blackberry, Sonos, Disani, Swiffer.

The list is, is truly impressive. So today we talk about all things naming and yeah, I think you're gonna like it I've got six questions here and there they're all targeted in and around, what you do. What do you think the biggest pain point is for like a CMO or a head of marketing when you're talking to them?

What's the pain point they're really trying to solve for. There's a range of pain points when it comes to, I've got, I've got to rename something. Typically, I think the most common factor is that they have outgrown the particular name, that they have moved ahead their product has been refined.

The marketplace has changed. You need to appeal to a, usually a broader audience. They're picking up typically a younger audience and, and they have a better story.

The name usually very suggestive, descriptive names just doesn't hold that water anymore. Looking at that, and the pain is, is really interesting Most clients come to us when they need to rebrand. rename with some fear and trepidation like, " I really don't want to do this, but I know I have to, and I know we're going to be better off," but, we really try to turn that around and say, "you can be way better off.

" Your employees are going to feel better. You're going to have a message to your customers that says, "Hey, look at us. We've got more of what we want and we're considering what you need even more so, so it can be really exciting.

" And that's what we try to do from the get go is like lose the fear. Yeah. We run into the same thing.

There's there's a big leap of faith. It's that feels like a really big change. Name being probably the biggest.

The visuals and how they communicate, the verbal identity and the expression of the brand, which is more of what we do, probably even less fearful to most people but still there's fear there there's a lot of coaching. There's a lot of comforting throughout the process to say "this is going to work. " Yes exactly, and work really well!

Right! Yeah. Think about the opportunity What do you think is the best reason to rename or when do you ever have conversations where you tell someone, you know what, I actually don't think you need to rename?

Does that even happen? Yes, it does. So I think that is a good question By our value in terms of being really first, very good consultants and very objective, we look at that very objective.

And I just had a conversation late last week where their name is, - partly because of design by the way- people pronounce it and say it in many different ways. Oh, right. And they said, basically, we're kind of tired of this.

Right. And I said, well, okay. But they've been in business seven or eight years and I said, well, let's look at how it's affected your business.

Guys said, well, it really hasn't. Our sales have doubled every year for seven years. So I said, well, that tells me name, isn't hurting you.

Right. And then basically through a longer conversation, I'm not a designer, but I think you can remedy this with a really good design team. where it's the messaging that surrounds the brand.

That's wrong, that, that hasn't kept pace with what they're doing, but the name is perfectly acceptable. I love that. Again, we try to follow a very similar line of thinking right?

In the beginning, it's all about consulting and trying to help the customer figure out what they actually need versus what they think they need. And we're not in the business of just selling stuff to sell it . If they don't need it, we want to be honest and tell them, no, you don't need this.

I think the thing that we see often too, as people will come and say, Hey, we need a new website And then talking through that, we, and then we helped them realize, like, it's actually not a website problem. It starts, it's more upstream from that, right. It is like the purpose and the positioning and, you know, and all those things, which will then help inform the new website.

It's not just making the website prettier. One of the things that I think has made us, successful and have this, have this longevity in the marketplace, is that our mission is to give our clients two things. They come to us for ideas, for names, right?

So we're going to give them those ideas, but part of our job is to give them new ways to think about the situation, right. To give them guidance like, Hey, have you thought about doing this? Not that.

We see the marketplace differently than you. And that's where the light bulb goes on with clients who go, Hey, I haven't thought about it that way. That outside looking in or that expression "naivete is a special brand of expertise.

" I mean, I love that phrase and it's, it's very helpful. So we try to lead every, every project with, okay. We gave you some ideas, but we gave you some new ways to think about what you're doing.

I love that. And I'm sure your, your clients partners are super happy about that type of experience in working with you, not just a business relationship, always. Not just purely down to the dollars in the invoices.

Yeah. Yeah. Great.

I'll be interested in what type of overlap you have here to this question with us, which is, what is the most challenging part of the naming process when you're going through these projects? Some of them, got the names behind you, really large scale What are the big hiccups? I have to say that there are several pain points or hiccups along the way, and they've always been there, but because of this digital economy that we live in, they're getting bigger and harder and more challenging.

The first pain point is that most clients and I say this with all due respect, most clients come to us with a very traditional view of naming, which goes back probably to the Fifties, to Sixties, the Seventies. Right. And they they think, Hey, this could be fun.

This is relatively easy and they look at it as tactical, right? Like it's a kind of at the end of the project, we've done our positioning. We've done our name.

We've got the package or at least the container we're working on the design. We try to move them to look at this as a strategic communication device and in a strategic project that requires more senior help. So we try to get up in the organization to help that.

And we also at that point try to educate them, that this is not just brainstorming and you give it to your lawyer and they get it So that's the first part getting people really to listen to that story. The second thing is getting the right people on the client side, into the decision-making process. We often start with, you know, really good well-trained but relatively junior executives in the scheme of things.

And it's often, very painful when the senior people who are the decision makers aren't involved and then you get to the end. And really we've had situations where we spent a lot of money and someone says, why are we doing this at all? Well, that should have been in the beginning.

So that's the final pain point is, is trademark clearance and evaluation. And I compare this to trying to explain the ocean to someone who's never seen it. It's hard to imagine the ocean Or personally, I will use the example.

I don't really want to listen to my accountant. I'll just say to him, his name is Keenan. I'll say, "Keenan, just tell me what I need to do.

" Right? Because he's going on to the, this law and that thing, and this change we'll do this. And the same thing I think happens when you, when you start talking to people who aren't lawyers about trademark clearance, but This digital economy has changed everything.

And I know that's an overused statement, but from a legal standpoint, the clutter in the marketplace is almost to the point of inflection where it's not impossible now, but it's getting to the point we're looking at probably three to four years down the road where it's going to be almost impossible to clear a name. So, and we're, and we're trying to work on that in terms of our legal process, our software to help with that, those kinds of things. So we want to get ahead of that, but it's a challenge.

Those are fantastic. Is the challenge with the market being flooded, that there just will be no names available. Is that kind of like what you're insinuating, like everything will have been said or done or somehow protected?

I'm glad you asked for clarification. So there's always going to be room to create names, right. That's going to go on for the next thousand years.

Okay. It's the question of the ability to get a name that meets a set of what we call a creative framework or a set of objectives. It's pronounceable across multiple languages and it's clear.

Not too long ago, we had had a client who started off saying, listen, I want this to be completely, totally clear in these countries. I want you to give me, only a name that is. com available.

I said, I can do that for you right now. And I just went cause I was at a presentation and I typed in about nine consonants in a row and then hit . com.

And I said, there's a name I said, that will be available. Absolutely. And you can buy that probably for $25 today.

And he said, I get your point. Yeah. I see.

Now the digital world of bringing. It opening up the world and then putting so much more pressure on that word, that name to be able to be translated to different cultures, mean different things. And there's another thing What's behind trademarks?

Trademarks is competition, it's products. And so there is so much noise in the marketplace. That our goal is always to create a brand for a client, that can cut through that noise and produce sound, produce a signal.

Right. And that's just getting harder and harder to do as you have more and more brands. Right, right.

As a company, the ability our challenges break through the noise, produce a signal with a registered trademark that works across. Usually our projects are between seven and 15 languages. So it's, it's, it's difficult, but we do like the challenge, It kind of reminds me of the thing that we will continue to be a harder and harder challenge for us, which is logo marks specifically, right.

Let's be clear that our brand is not a logo and like, you know, we don't have to get into that, but it is a part of the recipe, so we make them and when we're doing that, man, is it hard to continue to year over year, make something that is simple, make something that is unique and hasn't been done before, make something that has some sense of a meaning to what the the underlying story is. But doesn't have to tell the whole story and get past the personal bias that the people that have to sign off on it to say, like, do you like it? And does that even matter if you like it?

Quite the challenge. It's the same challenge. I mean, we're in communications, you know, it's the same and yours will get worse.

Yeah. It, it has we're still up for the fight. But it's, it's certainly not easy.

We're getting close here, don't want to go super long. So I got a little bit of a curve ball question here. And again, I don't want you to throw anybody under the rug, but 39 years of naming companies.

Is there any name out there that stands out to you that you're like, oh, that didn't really age? Well, or like now it's kind of funky now 39 years later, I can certainly think of work that we did 10 years ago that I'm like, yeah, it's probably doesn't hold up anymore. We've completed some, somewhere around 3,700 projects, right?

So somewhere around that area, I think the things that, that often go away because not all those marks are out there in the marketplace. Are those ingredients, those. Feature names, those benefit names that particularly in a lot of technology brands that we do that would really seem out of place now.

So got it. And we've learned over the years to try and think about the future. We tell clients first, we're going to create your name for the future.

So when we talk, when we have our input studio or conversation, we're really gonna focus on. Where are you going in the future and what the future looks like around you? We've gotten better at things that are more timeless or that exist for a long period of time.

Yeah. I think Blackberry's probably a great example of that. If you all had come up with a name that really pigeonholed them to a cellular device, and now even as we speak, they're trying to pivot.

Completely. Yeah. To not be pigeonholed into that they would have to then rename again.

Yeah. And the orientation of most people, cause we let humans like comfort, right. And comfort comes from things that describe things.

And that's, you know, going back to your pain point question, one of the things that we have to really push on clients is to get them out of that, you know, a suggestive name, a descriptive name in most circumstances, won't work for you over the long, long haul. And in fact, most of the time, our rebrands are related to things that are too specific. being specific, being very descriptive or prescriptive works when let's go back to the diehard battery, you know, they came out when batteries were pretty unreliable.

So to say, Hey, look at us, we're diehard. Right? Brilliant.

Okay. But now to come out with something that says, Hey, die-hards is a leader in this thing, we need to have something that says diehard in a different way. That's imitation and very limited returns.

Yeah. Well, I'm glad I asked that question. That was great.

So the last one is a little bit self-serving to me. And a lot of the design listeners I'm sure would be interested. I can't help a wonder.

So we've had the ability to work with the same client, right? So they go to you for naming. We end up taking the visual and verbal identity side of the project.

From your side, like what's the most satisfying part of that process? You guys start with it, you name it, you do the research, you kind of like, bring it, bring it to life in that way. And then you give it to an agency like ours.

What's that experience like for you? There's two things I really enjoyed about that process. So for us, you know, I use it phrase here when you name something, you give it power, right.

Which is right. I mean, we do this with children, right? I have two daughters.

You name them, you there there's power in that identity. What I really enjoy about briefing a design branding firm is when they sort of light up when we're, when we're explaining to them, here's the journey we've been on. Here's why this name is here.

And then we kind of really break it down and we break it down creatively and linguistically, and we even, you know, educate a little bit about trademark law and things like that. And then they come back along the way and you see this thing that. Often it's so unexpected the colors and the shapes and stuff.

And we all go, oh, that's great that they've taken the power and they brought it to life. Right. They, they they've taken it like a little child and made it into an adult so they can release.

And then it's on me because it's very hard. And you know this because of your training and the business you're in. The more you do what you do.

It's easier for you to conceptualize things right. To, to say, okay, I can see a little sketch. I can see where that's going.

And I never forget. And I try to tell everyone here, you know, unless you do that. You know, on a weekly basis, it's hard for people to come off of.

You know, they're in a meeting with accountants and they're going over numbers and they sit down and you can't expect them to look at it, a sketch or an idea of a name and say, oh, I could see where that can go. We have to kind of take them there. Yeah.

And what you, your firm does is you take clients there where they can say. Now I get it now. Now I, I feel good about this, right?

Always, always. Yeah. Sometimes it's right down to the wire until some final element.

Just really tips the scale and everyone goes like, yes, it's interesting. Like, you know, I'll speak from a designer voice. When you do see down the road, Like I'm able to see, oh, this thing's going to be this going to be magical.

I already have the full thing painted in my mind, but I've only got these little bits to show. Right. So you're wanting the client to get excited about the little bits and they're not necessarily excited yet.

And you're like, Oh, they don't see it yet. They're not, they're not there with me, but that's fine. Like, I'll be patient with them.

There'll be patient with us and they will start to see it. Yeah. And then we'll finally have that light bulb moment.

Sometimes that comes in a round two. Sometimes it comes in a round eight and you can tell that moment has happened. Right.

That's a really fulfilling moment in a project you're aware of that. And respect it, right. That, unless you're doing this, it's hard to sort of take something and go, that's why great filmmakers can, can, can look at it a couple of storyboards and say, I see where this is going.

I see where I want that camera angle to be, because they'd been there before. But if they took me out and said, okay, here's here. You're going to shoot this today, Dave.

And here's the storyboards. I wouldn't be going. Okay, well, you know, what do I do exactly the camera over there and start filming, but it's not the same.

Yeah. Yeah. Which again, that's why it's so important for companies like yours and ours to be really good shepherds, right.

It, it goes, and I preach this all the time internally in our company. It has to be more than the craft. It can't be just the craft.

That's only one side of the coin. And I really mean that the other side has to be the shepherding, the consulting, the, the whole, the human aspects of a project, because those projects are not easy. No, I mean, the, the word that I love to use, and as part of our values here is.

And it has nothing to do with naming or creativity. It's stewardship. They have entrusted us for a moment in time to do something.

And let's, let's fulfill that trust. One of the things that we look for in clients is clients who want that stewardship, who, who wants some leadership who look at us and say, wow, if you've done these types of names, you know, whether it's Impossible or Sonos or Pentium or anything like that, you, you must know something. I don't know.

And so therefore I want your leadership that those are the best relationships. Absolutely. Yeah.

I mean, I don't even, I couldn't. High five, you on that one anymore. Or say it any better, like that is so crucial to the success and the trust of a project.

And that is also how we operate too. So, yeah. Well, listen, we've got I don't want to keep people too long.

People got busy days. I know we've got two more projects that look like, you know, you're starting on the naming and then we'll take over on the other side. So I'm really excited about that.

Thanks for, thanks for your time. It was, it was absolutely a pleasure. Well, it was a pleasure on my side.

Look forward to working with you in these projects that we're starting and in the years and months ahead. Thank you so much. Good times ahead.

Thanks, David.