What's in a Name?

Lessons in Insights & Innovation From Anti Monkey Butt Powder

by Mark Prus

I am a professional name developer, and I like to gather opinions about product names. Earlier this year I posted a Twitter Poll to gather opinions on Anti Monkey Butt Powder... Good Name or Bad Name? The results indicated that about 70% of people thought Anti Monkey Butt Powder was a bad name.

However, the real learning came from the comments I received about the posting. The people who thought it was a bad name were making fun of the name and the product. The people who thought it was a good name were people who suffered from what might be described as a "chafed butt" due to extended horseback riding or motorcycle riding or truck driving. Several claimed to be consumers of the product and they were very defensive about the name... they thought it was perfect.

So what is the lesson on insights and innovation? It is very simple... do a great job of developing consumer insights behind your product and those insights will lead you to terrific ideas, such as a novel name for your product that speaks loudly to your target market. Who cares about the majority of people who might ridicule your product? What you should really care about is the "passionate minority" who will turn into loyal fans!

The owners of Anti Monkey Butt Powder did a terrific job of identifying with their very narrow target market. The "problem" of having a chafed butt is not one that everyone has, but if you do have it, you understand what Anti Monkey Butt Powder is designed to do. If you do not have this "problem" then it really does not matter what you think because you will never buy this product.

I chose Anti Monkey Butt Powder for the Good Name Bad Name poll because I thought it was a clever name, but when the passionate responses came in from people who identified with the product, I loved the name even more!


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Mark Prus is a marketing consultant who offers a name development service called NameFlash^SM.

Strategic Creativity Isn't Expensive

Many conversations recently have addressed the misperception that creativity, by definition, takes time, money, and effort that can't be afforded right now because of the economy. A couple of examples:

• Someone showed me a meeting announcement for an "ideation" session to which they'd been invited. It referenced the range of ideas under consideration as "creative and practical and everything in between."


• A tweet in recent weeks said that while the sender wouldn't reject innovation, he would "say no to unique creative thinking."


• Another forwarded email suggested a group shouldn't "over think" a topic "out of respect for time & resources. We can do that later when we can be more creative."

Arghhhhhhh!!!

Since when is practical the opposite of creative? And what types of pre-conceived ideas and misperceptions obscure the role creativity plays in contributing to business results?

The image below of three Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavors is another exhibit in showing the fallacy of the "creativity only in selected instances" point of view. Ben & Jerry's demonstrates the myriad benefits of strategic creativity with ice cream flavor names that:

• Play on and twist the familiar (to help initial recognition and retention)


• Are funny (introducing emotion, another element in improved idea stickiness)


• On brand (completely consistent with something you'd expect from Ben & Jerry's)

These flavors had to be named something. It probably took little if any additional time to come up with names that clearly work for the brand's benefit vs. generic names that wouldn't.

The point isn't to go out and name everything and call it good. The point is that no matter what the economic environment, being strategic and creative doesn't decline in importance. It's MORE important.

Strong branding companies know this and act accordingly, while also-rans wait around for economic signals to suggest it's time to turn creativity back on. Their challenge is they probably won't make it until their creativity stop light flashes green again. And maybe that's just fine!

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Mike Brown is an award-winning marketer and strategist with extensive experience in research, strategy, branding, and sponsorship marketing. He's a frequent keynote presenter on innovation and authors Brainzooming!