“Hades” wasn’t going to work at all – why we should think about the target markets when coming up with product names

Admittedly, “Hades” wasn’t even among the options when we reviewed potential product names for our client. But Latin names for new products were definitely on the agenda.

Baseline

Our client is a machinery supplier with a high share of exports. The company assigns product names according to a standardized formula. The product names have to go down well in all 30 countries our client exports to. This means that they’re not only supposed to sound good to the German ear, but also be pronounceable for Portuguese clients – and ideally also evoke positive associations. Against this backdrop, Gemino was asked to review a list of suggestions for potential product names and single out the linguistically good ones for the customer to take their pick.

Approach

Our focus is on having the names researched and evaluated by our linguists in the various language regions. The result is a linguistically and culturally approved selection which provides our client with a shortlist from which they can choose before the names undergo a final check by the subsidiaries and the legal department.
At the start of the project, we put some thought into the profile and number of linguists, and defined meaningful evaluation criteria. This resulted in a specially developed evaluation matrix according to linguistic, cultural and phonetic aspects. In a brief, we outlined the exact evaluation procedure for our linguists. For example, we specified the exact number of hits to be viewed in the most popular search engine for each region (which isn’t always Google) in order to evaluate the name for specific criteria.

Result

The result comprised a list of evaluations for the potential product names as well as an executive summary. Interestingly, a certain name frequently and independently received positive ratings across multiple language regions.

Conclusion

Our standardized procedure based on well-conceived criteria provides a useful decision-making tool. It enables our client to make a safe choice – without “Hades” etc. being a cause of bemusement.