Brand Naming
When a brand needs a direction
Not every name that sounds good is a good brand name, but every good brand name starts from a clear strategy.
From a company name to a brand name to the name of a product line, FreshBrand names from strategy and checks carefully for language, domain and protectability. We stay with the business from choosing the name to putting it into use; when the business wants protection, FreshBrand handles the registration directly and follows it through to a result.
Perspective
A name is one of the first assets a business owns and often the hardest one to change. It travels with the business through every contract, every introduction and every time a customer mentions it, long after the logo or the packaging has been refreshed.
So a name has to say what the brand wants to stand for, be easy to read for the people who will say it, be broad enough for the direction ahead and, just as important, be registrable so that it truly belongs to the business. Plenty of attractive names have been dropped at the last step because they were identical or too close to a trademark someone had already registered, or carried an unwanted meaning in the language of a market the business would enter.
Brand naming therefore starts from strategy rather than from a list of names: who the brand wants to become, which way it will grow and which other names it has to stand beside in the portfolio. Once those questions have answers, the creative work has a criterion to choose by.
For FreshBrand, a good name has to pass three tests: it can tell what the brand stands for, customers say it every day, and it can be registered and protected for the business.
When to start here
Every name is born in its own circumstances, and those circumstances decide what the name has to do.
When a business idea does not have a name yet
A new business has ambition but neither a name nor a positioning, so its first name has to carry the role the brand wants to play for many years to come.
When a name needs to be friendly to the many
The brand serves a large number of learners, so the name has to feel approachable from the first time it is heard and read naturally in both English and Vietnamese.
When the old name has become a limit
“Dong Duoc 5 Pharmaceutical Joint Stock Company” carried more than 40 years of trust, but it also tied the brand to the image of long-established traditional Eastern medicine. The new name FiOPharm is short, professional, approachable and open enough for a long-term direction, and it became the common roof over the whole product range.
FiOPharm, 2022
When a new product enters a crowded category
Bottled water is a category where the choices on the shelf look very much alike, so the name has to be short enough to remember, different enough not to be confused, and able to work with the packaging and the tagline.
How FreshBrand works
Naming runs from strategy to legal protection through five questions that make a name both right for the brand and owned by the business.
Where is the brand now?
We begin by understanding what the name has to carry: who the business wants to become, who its customers are, what names its competitors go by and where the new name will sit in the brand architecture.
What really needs to be created?
From the strategy, FreshBrand sets the criteria for the name: what it should evoke, whether it should describe or suggest, whether it should use Vietnamese, English or a newly created word, and how it has to fit the markets the business will enter.
Descriptive namesSay plainly what the business does, easy to understand from the first time
Suggestive namesEvoke an image or feeling tied to the brand’s values
Compound namesBuilt from meaningful word roots, as Oreli is from Odontology and Reliable, or HelloChao from “hello” and “chao,” the Vietnamese greeting
Coined namesInvent a word that never existed, easy to own and protect but slow to gain meaning
What do we choose?
From a long list of options, names are screened through four layers of checks before they reach the leadership team.
StrategySays what the brand wants to stand for
LanguageEasy to read and remember, with no bad meaning in the languages involved
DigitalThe domain and the names on digital platforms can still be registered
LegalNot identical or similar enough to cause confusion with an already registered trademark, according to a preliminary search
How does the strategy come to life?
The chosen name comes with an explanation of its meaning, its spelling and a tagline, and is then turned into a logo and an identity system, so that from its very first appearance the name and the visuals say the same thing.
What will actually change?
After launch, a name shows its value in how people use it: customers say it correctly and remember it, and the business keeps growing under that name without having to change its name.
What the business keeps
Along with the name, the business keeps the grounds that show why it was chosen, so that it can use the name with confidence for the long term.
- A set of naming criteria drawn from the brand strategy.
- The chosen brand name, with its story of meaning and a consistent spelling and pronunciation.
- Results of the language and domain checks and the preliminary protectability search for the chosen name.
- A tagline and naming rules for future product lines and sub-brands, when the business needs them.
- Trademark and industrial design applications filed in the business’s name, when it registers for protection with FreshBrand.
Trademark & Design Protection
Registration is the step that turns a chosen name into real ownership for the business. FreshBrand handles trademark and industrial design registration directly with Vietnam’s Intellectual Property Office, in five steps.
- 1. Searching for protectability: Done while names are being screened, so the business does not invest in a name or a design someone has already registered.
- 2. Preparing the file: The trademark sample for the name or logo, or the set of design images for packaging and products, along with the list of products and services to protect under current and upcoming business plans.
- 3. Filing: FreshBrand files the application in the business’s name with the Intellectual Property Office; when several identical or similar applications compete, the filing date decides which one is granted the certificate.
- 4. Following the examination: By regulation, an application receives a formality examination within one month, is published within two months of being accepted as valid; substantive examination then takes up to nine months from the publication date for a trademark and seven months for a design. In practice, it can take longer. Throughout, FreshBrand tracks the application and works with the business on the Office’s notices.
- 5. Receiving the certificate: When the application meets the conditions for protection, the business pays the fee and receives the certificate. A trademark is valid for ten years from the filing date and can be renewed repeatedly; an industrial design is valid for five years from the filing date and can be renewed up to two times.
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Is your business facing a similar question? Send a request to talk with FreshBrand, or download the portfolio to see more of our work.
In practice
OreliNaming and building a new brand, 2017
When a name starts from a vision
In 2017, a dental business idea was about to enter the Dak Lak market, where most clinics were still small and a professional, trustworthy cosmetic dentistry model was not yet really present. When FreshBrand began, the project had no name, no positioning and no identity.
“Oreli did not start with a name. It started with a vision.”
From the vision of pioneering premium cosmetic dental care in Dak Lak, FreshBrand looked for a name that could carry two values at once: expertise and trustworthiness. The name Oreli was formed from Odontology and Reliable, paired with the tagline “The smile you wish for,” and was then carried into the identity, the space and the service experience.
As Oreli has grown from one clinic into a system of several, the name still stands on the sign of every clinic, true to the two values it was chosen to carry: expertise and trustworthiness.
The question behind it
Choosing the name is only part of the work: it still needs a tagline to say more, a symbol to be recognized by, and an order so that later names fall into the right place.
FreshBrand capabilities
Strategy
When a brand needs a direction
Identity
When a brand needs to be recognized
Expression
When meaning needs to take shape
Experience
When a brand needs to be felt
Communication
When a brand needs to be understood
Start with FreshBrand
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