SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Movies have the Oscars®, music has the GRAMMYs®, advertising has the Clios®, and now brand names have a prize just for them. Introducing the Normans™, an annual award to honor creativity in brand name development.
A company or product name is perhaps the most important attribute of any brand, because it invites you to engage in a relationship with that brand. Generating a relevant—yet distinct—brand name is not easy. 500,000 new businesses launch every month, while 360,000 name requests stream across the desks of the UPSTO annually.
“It’s important that we honor great new brand names,” said Mike Pile, creative director of Uppercase Branding, a verbal identity consultancy that specializes in brand name development. “It was long overdue to celebrate the most fundamental and enduring element of a brand: its name.”
The past year has been fertile ground for naming, bringing us such luminary labels as Cabin, Ugly Baby, GammaChef, Ponycar, Strange Quest, Sloppy Steve, and others. But many names are not getting the recognition they deserve. Enter… The Norman Awards™
WHY THE NORMANS?
Named for the Norman invasion of England in 1066, which dramatically expanded the size and scope of the English language, the Normans™ recognize creative and linguistic achievement in new company and product names.
THE PROCESS
Using its proprietary evaluative system, DESLER-Vessel, Uppercase Branding evaluated thousands of nominees based on each name’s fit to concept, descriptive relevance, emotional signals, semantic meaning, linguistic power, and competitive boldness. The winners for 2017 are:
THE WINNERS OF 2017
Best Newish High-Tech Name: “Nod” from Rest Devices, Inc.
Nod™ is an app designed for parents to improve their baby’s sleep. It is simple but the judges especially liked the multiple impressions it evoked; nodding is the visual equivalent of saying yes, it is an approval, and nodding off to sleep is gentle and dream-like.
Best Newish Name in Food or Beverage: Donut Shop Cereal™ from Kellogg’s
Cereal is for breakfast and so are donuts. Cereal is sweet and so are donuts. Donuts are delicious and so is this cereal. Donut Shop cereal won’t appeal to everybody but it is not intended to. For those with a sweet tooth however, Donut Shop Cereal is impossible to resist.
Best Newish Name in Consumer Durables: Family Hub™ from Samsung
There is no more center to a family, outside of relationships, bonds, caring, communication, empathy, etc., than the refrigerator. Samsung recognizes this and brands this humble appliance with a moniker it deserves.
Best Newish Proprietary Drug Name: Repatha™ from Amgen
Naming drugs is hard, but Amgen hits a homerun with Repatha. The prefix, “re” is replete with positive attributes from recovery to renewal, while the root, “path” harkens to the medical term pathology but, more powerfully, especially combined with its exceptional advertising campaign, suggests a path forward.
Best Newish Medical Device Name: SpyGlass™ from Boston Scientific
This visualization system is as high tech as it gets but with a descriptive name like SpyGlass it is within reach of medical professionals and patients alike. Who cannot envision, and be put at ease, images of tall ships, dashing captains, and intrepid explorers all accomplishing their daring-do.
Best Newish Name in the Transportation Sector: Cabin™ from Cabin Technologies
Cabin rebranded its overnight bus service between SF and LA to capture the cozy comfort of hearth, blankets and home. Our Upper Peninsula, (Michigan) judge especially liked this name.
Best Newish Name in Sports Equipment: GlobeTrek™ from NordicTrack
This workout app name beautifully suggests the adventure and wanderlust of the elliptical’s videos of the paths, stairs and trails you can pretend to trek from the comfort of your own home.
Best Newish Name in Apparel: Leimere from Leimere™
Leimere gets its name by combining leisure with cashmere which gives it a good backstory. But more importantly, like all extraordinary brand names, especially in the fashion space, it is more than the sum of its parts. It is mysterious, vaguely French sounding, and open to any meaning the consumer wants to attribute to it.
Best Newish Name in Beer/Wine/Spirits: Siren Noire™ from Heavy Seas Beer
The booze business is a fount of creative brand names but Siren Noire from the Uncharted Waters series of the Heavy Seas brewery has an irresistible cadence that helps it capture a 2017 Normans.
Best Newish Name in Consumer Electronics, Entertainment: The Wall™ from Samsung
Amidst a backdrop of alpha-numeric soup names that evoke nothing, communicate no feeling, nor encourage the inherent emotion in a brand, Samsung continues to leverage the power of verbal identity to create competitive advantage through narrative. While The Wall evokes graphic imagery both good and bad, when placed in context, i.e. on your living room wall, it simply says big and theatrical.
Best Newish Name in Consumer Electronics, Tool: Aura™ from Cognitive Systems Corp.
This smart home monitoring device name appears made up because of its unusual linguistic construction of three vowels and one consonant, yet it is real enough and communicates a welcoming atmosphere without the heavy handedness of directly referring to security or safety.
Best Newish Retail Chain Name: Walmart™ from Walmart Stores, Inc.
This seemingly simple change speaks volumes about the state of retailing. Removing the word “store” from its brand name removes a nontrivial barrier to expanding Walmart’s image. Besides, the word “store” is needlessly redundant given the “mart” inherent in the core brand name.
Best Newish Financial Service Name: Stash™ from Stash Investments, LLC
Stash cuts through a cluttered environment of staid investment firm names with a casual and flip sounding word that speaks to the heart of its mission; stash away a little bit of cash whenever you can and watch it grow.
Best New Category (Cannabis) Name: True Humboldt™ from True Humboldt
Anyone remotely familiar with cannabis will recognize the name Humboldt as representing California’s Humboldt County. The region is to cannabis (and lore) what the Napa Valley is to wine. It does an exceptional job of delivering an authentic and emotional feeling in just two words. However, unlike Philadelphia cream cheese which gets grandfathered in, the FDA and FTC may take issue if the company seeks to expand its growing region.
ABOUT THE NORMANS
The Norman Awards launched in 2016 to honor excellence in brand name development. It was created and is managed by Uppercase Branding, a brand identity firm specializing in the development of extraordinary names for new companies, products, and features. Uppercase employs powerful creative techniques, proprietary evaluative methodologies, and custom research to create evocative verbal identities for companies like Nokia, FedEx, GE, and soon-to-be unicorn startups across every business sector. www.uppercasebranding.com