Naming A Brand

There is a ton of advice out there if you’re thinking about how to name and visualise a brand. Probably too much. Information overload is easily reached, especially since, as most of us aren’t trained in such things, it can be difficult to know what to prioritise. In this entry I’m going to go over how I landed on the name ‘Cosy Cub Games’.

Disclaimer! I don’t consider myself an expert or particularly well read in this field. This is a short account of what I found to be important when considering a name, and why that might be the case. I would love to hear any comments, especially if they go against what I’m about to set out.

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1. Overall Feel

It’s difficult to define the overall feel, other than to listen to your gut, and to have the capacity to listen to the gut reactions of others around you. Announce your best loved contender for your brand’s name to a friend and gauge their reaction. Be ready to have your favourites challenged, but also be ready to help explain why you think it works. If you can explain it quickly and clearly, and this garners a positive reaction, chances are it at least makes sense.

More than all of this though, your brand should mean something to you. It is after all your own company, and should make most sense to you. Yes your brand is the central piece that people will attach everything to, however you are selling ideas and products, and ultimately these things will come to represent your brand.

I ended up choosing ‘Cosy Cub Games’ for a couple of key reasons. One is that it is loaded with imagery and metaphor. It’s a play on words, so some people might think of other phrases or existing brands as an immediate reaction. It has alliteration, which helps make the rhythm of the name memorable. It has two words that are quite specific: ‘cosy’ is a particular version of comfortable, which is what I hope board game players feel when they sit down to play; and with ‘cub’ comes a sense of playfulness. There are many other connotations, but to say that it all played a part in choosing this name would be a lie. I liked it, and other people also seemed to like it.

The other reason is this. I wanted to find a name that conjured up a sense of green-ness, of sustainability and conscientiousness. It’s probably a lack of imagination on my part that I couldn’t come up with something that I felt was good and relatable. So instead I broadened out the brief to include things related to those areas. Climate change is a big part of our lives, and will impact us for generations to come. In looking to the future though I, just like everyone else, want my children and their children to live in a world free of these worries and responsibilities. I want my children to be cosy cubs, able to enjoy life to its fullest, without the burdens that our generations feel. And even if this isn’t possible, I would like to imagine a world where board games, if only for a little while, can take us away from the worries of the world and for the time that we play them, make us feel like the cosy cubs we all want to be.

2. Memorability

This comes under two main categories: the name, and the logo. Tell someone your brand name and then wait for a couple days. Ask that same person if they remember what your brand name was. Similarly, show someone your logo (or your sketch for one more likely) and then ask them a couple of days later to describe it back to you.

Both of these tests can help to measure the ‘hook’ side of the brand, the part on the consumer end that connects your company to things they already relate to. I’m not saying that every brand name and logo needs a good ‘hook’, it doesn’t always have to be super catchy, but I would argue that it ought to be easily memorable and easily described.

I put a bunch of names through this test with various people at different times, and the one that survived best also happened to be the one that meant the most to me. Possibly this is a coincidence. Not everyone remembered the exact name but were in the right ball park, if not very close. Everyone remembered the shape of the logo and the rough content. This told me that after a couple of exposures in the right scenario, the brand itself would hold up.

Pay someone money to help you with your brand’s logo. Not everything needs money thrown at it, but a professional logo design, done by someone sympathetic to your needs, will pay off massively. I like to think of it as a statement of intent. When trying to inspire confidence in your company, or to catch the eye of someone you want to interact with, first impressions can make a big difference. I’ve spent many years in the music industry, and I’m sure it’s not exactly the same, but experience there has told me that with each interaction with the outside world, you build up an expectation of how you are going to be perceived. How you manage that perception is squarely in your hands.

3. Inference

This is a tricky one, as each one of us are impeded by our own limited experience. It’s impossible to say if someone will respond positively or negatively to any idea that you give to the world, and it’s no different with branding. Massive companies almost certainly do extensive brand testing before settling on a name and logo, but small startups with little to no finance don’t have this luxury. What we do have however is a well understood niche.

Awareness and understanding of all kinds of social issues is becoming more common, which is a fantastic thing. There’s obviously a huge distance still to go for many marginalised people, but the conversations are largely now public and taking place. I didn’t want to choose a brand that would unintentionally appear to be insensitive to folks of any walk of life, but being led solely by not wanting to cause offence can also send you down a difficult path. Of course, all of this depends entirely on your attitude towards branding. If you were to name your company ‘F*** You Games’ then you are going to reach a very particular wedge of the gaming community, but likely put off a lot of others (the trading standards of your country probably disallow you from using profane, racist or sexist language as part of your registered or trading name).

I thought ‘Cosy Cub’ to be a good fit. One, whoever you are, there’s probably a decent chance that you have at one point in your life considered a young animal to be cute. Two, the percentage of people likely to be triggered by the image of a wolf cub is almost certainly so small as to be negligible. If you are one of these people, I apologise, but stand firm in my belief that baby animals are objectively cute.

4. Marketability

This is an important one if you are looking to do anything more than simply do one thing. If all you are going to do is one thing, in this case create games, then probably marketability is something that you don’t even need to consider. Great! Move on. However, if you want to do anything like make t-shirts, badges, stickers, or create wall art, ring binders, shower curtains, bubblegum… You name it. Then, you need to consider very carefully how your brand can handle these things.

People will of course buy a t-shirt of their favourite band, meme or saying simply for the reason that they feel connected to that thing. These people are die hard fans and are already in. There are however an incredible number of people out there who might buy something if it appeals to them strongly enough. Sure they’re likely to have come across it because of having already interacted with your brand, but lots of people really need something to look great in order to part with their money and to buy into your brand. Think about who your main audience is. Look at companies you admire and see what they do and how they do it. Look at companies that you think could do things better and ask yourself what you would do or would have done different.

‘Cosy Cub’ hits a few of these things and gives a lot of scope for expansion. I’m not necessarily intending to sell shower curtains with my company’s branding, but never say never! Unstable Games are a great example of turning a narrative into multiple product lines. The characters may have originated in their games, but they have a life of their own on clothing, pins, stickers… Yes their logo isn’t the main attraction, but the name and the style are cohesive and still underpin all of the other designs that have grown from it.

5. The Story

So, I think this is the clincher for me. Whether people know it or not, every company has, and is, an ongoing story. Everyone’s individual lives have been, and are, an ongoing story. We choose to tell ourselves stories all of the time about who we are and why we do the things we do. We choose, day in day out, to associate ourselves with stories we feel resonance with. This could be as innocuous as going to buy groceries, or it could be how you decide to engage with your country’s future. To ignore this facet of branding would be to miss out on a huge opportunity. Stories matter.

This is the real reason I went with ‘Cosy Cub Games’. There is an immediate association with the image. It tells a story before you’ve had a chance to even see what the brand has on offer. People ultimately trade in stories and therefore belief, not money. When people see my company name I want them to feel like they have a gently steaming cup of hot chocolate on the table, good friends around them, and a fun game to interact with, which bring meaning and comfort. This is probably all too flowery in terms of assessing how successful a brand’s name is, but my personal belief is that the story carries significant potential. Don’t ignore that opportunity.

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I want to stress again, this is my experience, and is not intended as a catch-all guide, but as a reflection on my own path. Hopefully it’s helpful in some way to some folks out there.

If you agree or disagree, or just have some comments or suggestions of your own, please get in touch or leave a comment. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks for reading!

Benjie x