When you have as a task to name a new product, the usual first instinct is to start a brainstorming with your team and try to name it internally. Sometimes, it’s the best decision and you will continue this way maybe forever. In other cases, you see that things aren’t just simple, and you start questioning yourself: “Should I get external help from a naming agency?”

We’ve written these article in order to correctly analyze both options and help you to make the best choice which fits you perfectly.

5 Pros for naming your products internally:

1. Cheaper, if you are a small company

If you own a start-up or a pretty small company, in terms of employees and revenues, maybe naming your product internally is the best choice for the beginning. Of course, that contracting a naming agency brings you also some extra-costs and in the case of a harsh start, every single dollar spent matters a lot. We recommend you keep an eye on our blog and read all the articles because we are sure that you can make a wonderful naming job if you will learn some rules and hints.

2. Your team knows the best

We won’t lie to you. Your marketing & branding team knows the best all about the product: key benefits, key functionalities, key differences, objectives and vision for the future. No naming or branding agency will overcome you in terms of knowledge about your own field. If your team has also strong naming knowledge, they like to do this job and they have proved before that they are able to do it right, keeping of this path may be the best decision.

3. Involvement brings emotional attachment

 When you involve your teams (marketing and production teams) in the naming development process, they start growing an emotional attachment for the new product. Being inside this job will make your employees to feel that their opinion counts, and they have the chance to leave behind their work a brand name as an important heritage. Even if you are working with a naming agency, we will always recommend you involve your teams in the naming process in order to show them for real how much do they count for the company.

4. It may be faster

Sometimes, especially in the cases where the marketing teams are used to name many products, behind the naming process, there is also a certain naming system and set of rules which makes the entire process simpler and faster. If your company owns thousands of products and your teams are used to name hundreds of products every year, for sure, taking on board a naming agency will slow down the naming process.

5. If your marketing team has nothing else to do….

Usually marketing teams are always very busy with a lot of strategies and tactics to implement. But in some cases, they have plenty of empty time. Giving to them this task, maybe will improve their productivity and will challenge their creative competences. Naming is not an easy task and will keep them busy and involved for a time in a new interesting field.

5 Cons for naming your product internally:

1. If you are a big company, it’s cheaper to hire a specialized naming agency

In the case of a large company, involving many employees in the naming process can cost you a lot of money and in many situations, this investment does not bring you the perfect expected result. Big companies pay higher wages, so you have to simply calculate how much do you spend on the time spent by your employees in the naming process, on the protocol expenses (team building for brainstorming, special food & drinks, special lunches, overtime hours etc) and you will see that a naming agency will cost you a lot less. The difference is that a naming agency does only naming. A marketing employee does a lot of other jobs. It’s like the difference between a professional mechanic and a man who likes to repair his car because he has a hobby to do that.

2. A naming agency does only naming

Like we’ve told you above, we do not want to challenge the naming competences of your internal marketing team. We are sure that they can manage great a naming project. Still, the difference remains there: A naming agency does only naming. We simply breathe names in every single day of our professional life. A marketing employee does a lot of tasks and he may be brilliant in another marketing or branding field like online promotion, Social media strategy, graphics and so on. If you need the perfect naming strategy, you should work with the ones who prove that they can do it every day.

3. Mediation of potential conflicts

Unfortunately, even if this is a taboo subject, it happens a lot. When it comes to name a new product there are many conflicts inside of a company like:

• The top management want to impose a certain naming option and other people do not have the courage to say “no”
• The engineering and the marketing teams can’t reach an agreement
• The votes after the brainstorming meeting are given from friendships or other interests like supporting your boss’s naming option in order to get a promotion

A naming agency does not have any interest to promote or take the side of someone in this story. They will simply get involved in order to mediate this conflict and to find the best solution for the new product and for the company. You should take into consideration to use a naming agency even as a mediator into your naming process.

4. Fresh and new perspective

In many cases we have encountered clients who had certain naming misconceptions like:

• I don’t like names which start with the letter “A”
• I don’t like names which have more than 5 letters
• I don’t want a name which ends with a vowel

If a top manager says to an employee this kind of rules, most probably, the rules will be followed. But a naming agency has the responsibility to explore all the best naming option. In many of our naming projects, we have delivered also some naming options exactly opposite of the rules imposed by the client. And guess what? The exact opposite naming types were the final choice. A naming agency does not come to follow some rules. Of course, they will respect a guideline, but their main duty is to give you the best solution and to think outside the box in a new and fresh perspective.

5. Strategy, legal and linguistic stuffs

In many cases, a new product name is just a result of a brainstorming session for the internal team of a company. For a naming agency, a new product name is also about:

• Integrating the new product name into the general naming architecture
• Thinking forward about the future new naming direction and architecture of the entire company
• Building a strong, logical and coherent naming strategy
• Checking the trademark registration availability of any new naming proposal
• Taking care about the linguistic screening part for the products which will be launched at a worldwide level

As you may see, there are many pros and cons regarding this subject. Sometimes, doing the naming process internally may be the best decision. But if you feel the need to involve a naming agency into your next naming process, we are here for you! Drop us a line about your future naming plans.