Verbal Identity: the sound of a brand name

23 Feb 2007 Category: Features, Products, Worldwide

Verbal Identity: the sound of a brand name

Why do certain brands always seem to be present in some back area of your mind, so that you'd only have to see the name and there's an image inside your head? 'Verbal Identity' expert Scott Milano will tell you why the sound of a brand name is so important.

I’ll carefully drop some names and you have to tell, if you’ve heard of them before: BRAVIA, OPTIO, AQUOS, FOMA …and VIAGRA. Gotcha! Did you ever wonder what the hell these product names actually mean, or where they come from? The linguistic wizard that worked on most of them is Scott Milano. Since three years he is leading the Verbal Identity department of global corporate Interbrand Japan in Tokyo. ‘Verbal identity’? Scott and his team create not only a name for a brand, a label, a product – they create an image in your head only by the sound of that brand’s name. For PingMag he talked about the ingredients that make them.

Written by Verena


Scott Milano, manager of the ‘Verbal Identity’ department at Interbrand Japan

How did you become the Verbal Identity manager at Interbrand Japan?

I graduated with a degree in philosophy in America and honestly, afterwards I didn’t know what to do with it. I kind of liked writing, so I got myself a job as business reporter. When I was writing about products I realized that I liked the aspect of copy oriented stuff and focused on that. But gradually the amount of writing has decreased considerably over the last seven years. From 2 000 words articles to one short ad page, to brand statements and slogans, to in the end one single word – a name.

So what does your department of Verbal Identity provide?

The bulk of our business is developing brand names and brand statements, like slogans. We have several key stages like in any consulting job or advertisement agency: it starts with a briefing where we get all the concepts whether it’s a product or a company and how far they want to stretch it, like whether the product is going into other categories. Then we pull it in our own world and get into the discovering stage: we come up with all sorts of concepts and do some background research. Again: we don’t create products, we create ideas that go on products or ideas that go into companies.

What kind of people work in your department, what’s their background?

We are basically six in our team, coming from all nationalities: a British, two Japanese, one from Finland and one from Greece. I’m American. We have some more linguistic oriented people and some more strategic oriented ones. But they come from all sorts of backgrounds. For example, one guy is a creative writer. He publishes stuff like poetry and Sci-Fi.

What do you think if you read ‘Aquarius’? The Latin word of ‘Aqua’ would be obvious. But further: For once, ‘Aquarius’ is not only the sign but actually the Latin name for ‘Neptune’ or ‘Poseidon’, the ancient Greek god of the oceans. Does the ending of the word refreshen your mind? Very well then…

How do you usually start with a new product or brand?

As a simple example, when we do brainstorming, we think of something like ‘if it were a person or a celebrity, who would it be?’ or ‘if it were music, what kind of music would it be?’

How long does the whole process usually take?

Sometimes a month, sometimes our time frame is less…

And finally you present a client, let’s say, 10 names for his new product?

It depends on the time schedule. If we focus well and get through in one presentation, there are usually 20 to 30 names. Sometimes clients come back and want us to focus on one specific area. Ultimately our guarantee is that we give them one name that could work.

‘Bioré’ - What do you think when you hear that brand name? ‘Bio’ makes you feel like this cosmetic product is possibly made with more natural products. And the accent at the end is supposed to add an exotic French note, right.

Could? Did it happen that something didn’t work out the way you planned?

Most of it doesn’t because we don’t have ultimate control over what’s actually put on something. At least myself, I learned not get too attached to one idea. You can be attached to concepts and certain ideas, but there may be a number of different articulations to say it. We don’t make the final decisions…

I see, please give me then a recent example you really enjoyed working on…

I’d love to tell you about my favourite one - but I can’t. Some clients don’t want us to talk about it, not only afterwards but never. But for example, BRAVIA is a name I created. Then the project was initially to develop two brand names for two separate lines: one for the casual viewing, the feminine, more playful one. The other was for the high-end users. In the end we created about 3000 names for both projects, but ultimately it came down to one name and one brand.


‘SONY’: A brand name that everyone seems to know. Also one of Interbrand’s clients.

If you hear the name BRAVIA you wouldn’t think of a flat screen in the first place…

Again, a lot of the ideas come up after the briefing. In this case it was about a stellar performer with super-high quality - something brave, beautiful, very natural and a very powerful, moving experience.

That’s why it sounds like Bravo?

Yes, in this case it’s the etymology. Unfortunately this name has been copied since in various ways. If you look at the TV sector now, a lot of the names have this style: they end in e, i, a, or they have similar constructs or similar sounds. That’s a form of flattery. At least in 2005 and 2006 it has helped turn SONY around globally, as it is one of their strongest brands. Actually I walked through Yurakucho yesterday and saw a huge billboard of the Big Camera with an AQUOS add on it, their main competitor - and, by the way, we did that name, too.

No way!

Yes, I think those companies know who we work with. Anyway, then next to this add was a PANASONIC add, and then came the one for BRAVIA. The thing that struck me was: for AQUOS they showed the TV, the name, and then a person. For BRAVIA it was only the name on this rich red background. No product, just the name.

Mission accomplished! So the product name alone is generating an image…

But what about a name that means nothing to you - but you remember it nevertheless? You have an image that is caused by something else: by the sounds. Names are really an integral part of everything: people have a name, things have names. Names really do get into people’s heads, they become ingrained in their minds.

You can split ‘Panasonic’ in the Greek word of ‘pan’ for ‘all’ or ‘global’, and ’sonic’. So does it want to hint at some surround sound? Definitely…

If you work on a global scale – how do you deal with that in several languages?

Certain sounds create certain moods, but obviously the language is tied into it.

Are there words that work universally?

Sure, just simple words. A lot of English words work global. For example, thank you usually works - but not everywhere. It’s hard to say what works globally and what doesn’t: once a name and a product or a brand is put together, it’s a set that becomes the brand, so you can’t detach it. Simply put, what works globally as a brand would be anything that everyone knows and a lot of people like. Something people believe in.

But people don’t necessarily believe in the same things everywhere, so how do you find that out on a global basis?

We often test the acceptability of names in certain markets. For each project, we work with other Interbrand offices and linguists around the world to check our proposals for negative association, ease of pronunciation and more. If our proposals fail this check, we of course don’t present them to the client.

‘HITACHI’: In Japanese it doesn’t have a meaning except for the name of the town the company originated. How does it sound to you? Maybe like something sharp and precise…

I remember a couple of years ago there was a SUV introduced in Europe, and only afterwards they found out that its name, “Pajero”, is quite impolite in Spanish…

Yes, that’s why we check beforehand. Also we do preliminary trademark screening. Trademark means something that can be a name or a design you can claim ownership of. According to the category and the market, we check if there is the exact same trademark there or not. And if that looks okay linguistically and fits the concept we do some more trademark research.

One other thing: on the Interbrand-produced site on branding, BrandChannel, there was a readers’ survey about the Top 5 brand names of 2006, like which ones got most of the attention. Interestingly, the Top 5 in the States were GOOGLE, APPLE, YouTube, and STARBUCKS – and even WIKIPEDIA, too. In Europe it was all about IKEA, SKYPE and ZARA. Would that mean that brands like YouTube or SKYPE somehow reach the global mainstream outside the IT world?

One thing that I’m always reminded of since I’m in Japan is: as foreigners, as Westerners we tend to think ‘that’s the main world if something like YouTube is huge in the States and in Europe.’ But is that really global? Do the people in China get into it or do the people in India dig YouTube? If you want to think global you can’t just focus on certain areas, because ultimately a lot of regions are quite important.


Nearly everybody in the Western world must at some point have heard of that name: GOOGLE.

Do people in China care about MySpace? Why should they as they have their own version…

Of course, in China they have their own version of GOOGLE and MySpace, and in Japan, there is MIXI…

So the same ideas are taken and adapted to local areas… But as far as it goes with a global brand name it is quite difficult: getting something that could potentially work, that’s a challenge. It’s linguistic, it’s cultural, and it’s certainly very legal.

Actually Scott told me some more about his recent name creations, but sadly I’m not allowed to reveal them to you… One hint only: I surely bet that anybody on the whole planet would instantly recognize the name of this gadget that recently came out… Thank you Scott Milano for giving us such insights in the delicate matter of naming a brand so that its sound creates similar appealing moods in people’s heads globally!

82 Comments

  1. Thanks for this post. Good One.

    Posted by: Mimo on February 23rd, 2007 at 10:45 pm

  2. this is good, its nice to know that some of the things we study in school has some fun and intellectual uses. thanks that was interesting.

    Posted by: daniel on February 23rd, 2007 at 11:32 pm

  3. Good article from a different perspective. Thanks.

    Posted by: Bill Olen on February 24th, 2007 at 12:34 am

  4. Interesting! I guess Nintendo naming the Wii after it’s code name of Revolution is a good recent example of this. Wii sounds fun, approachable and less intimidating, obviously better to capture their market.

    Posted by: satek on February 24th, 2007 at 12:45 am

  5. [...] We posted about Gravity Branding, but in the PingMag interview of Scott Milano we see a lighter approach: And finally you present a client, let’s say, 10 names for his new product? [...]

    Posted by: Design Ninjas » Blog Archive » Product Naming Lite on February 24th, 2007 at 4:33 am

  6. very very good, but you know the mysterious world of found made some beautiful work with 3 boys who were compretely covered with logos and very nice too. but good i like this. happy baci beso bisou ciao

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  7. Hi!
    How are you?

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  8. Really Cool!
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  11. Pleasing. Appetizing.この仕事は面白そう！I want this dudes job.

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  12. This has got to be one of the shittiest professions. Thanks for covering it. A loser business reporter hired by a brand company to think about sounds. Heard of sonic branding? At least it has some ring to it, no pun intended. They analyze the music and tonality of sounds associated with brands, for instance, the Bic bicu bicu bicu camera, or the MS Windows starting sound, and such. But the sound of a brand - give me a break. If a brand name works, then there will be a ton of post-hoc hypothesizing. If it doesn’t, no one will mention a word. There’s no science about it, certainly not before the brand success is established. Glad for this dude that he has found some use for himself, but in economic terms, it is ‘disguised unemployment’. Cheers.

    Posted by: Shanx on March 1st, 2007 at 4:39 pm

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  15. Just read yesterday that “The BRAVIA sub-brand (…) is an acronym for Best Resolution Audio Visual Integrated Architecture”
    Voila….

    Posted by: Stephane on March 6th, 2007 at 7:01 pm

  16. I’m not native, but Bravia clearly does not mean “Best Resolution Audio Visual Integrated Architecture.” Think. Just guess, but, it’s, Bravo!

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  21. in Germany and then in the United States

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  22. I agree with Shanx. I find it depressing that this wanker finds employment doing something so meaningless. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself doing such work that contributes nothing to the betterment of society. Quite the contrary in fact. Awful

    Posted by: Todd Pablowski on September 19th, 2007 at 8:23 am

  23. Undoubtedly naming is an important part of any brand. Do you think iPod would have worked if it was called “DigitalStoragePalette” or Wii if was called “Point&Play&Ping(Mag)”? So no need to bash this guy’s job, Todd. It’s interesting. Differentiated. And, may I dare say, necessary. ThinkItPingItSingIt!

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