Let's play with naming: successful names for kids' goods

The market for children’s goods is highly competitive today. All good short names, as a rule, have already been sorted out and registered. What should man do in this case?

What techniques can be used by the owners of kids’ brands and stores when developing names?

Elena Ilyina, head of naming projects in LINII branding agency, shares some life hacks.

When developing names for the children’s sphere, you must initially decide on your target audience — who do you want to impress? Moms who buy baby food for toddlers, or dads who came for toys and sweets at the request of their 5-6 year olds? Perhaps your audience is children of 10 years old who have their own pocket money and are allowed to buy what they want without paying attention to their parents?

The main difficulty with the name is that, on the one hand, it should be childish, on the other hand, it should «catch» an adult audience. The buying decision is usually made by parents. Even when the child has money, he buys little things in the checkout area. He does not choose his clothes and does not know what brands he wears. Later, in adolescence, children themselves begin to make decisions, this happens in parallel with the exit from the children’s category. Once you have dealt with the target audience, you can start generating names.

We will show several approaches in developing names for brands in the children’s industry.

Our portfolio includes several names for Russian and foreign trademarks developed with help of this method: Peek-a-boo, Myasli, Mamelle, L’zya (one can).

For example, for the Baby Lux Company, which was hampered by the luxury name, we proposed a simple and sonorous childish neologism — L’zya (means I can!). Since the 2000s, when the luxury prefix was fashionable for almost all areas of business, not only the perception of premium categories has changed, but also approaches to raising children. The bans and restrictions are not effective anymore, the word «can» is in trend, but with an understanding of the consequences. We put this idea into the naming, which was born from the uncomplicated, but very strong in terms of emotions, childish neologism L’zya. A four-letter word is perfectly remembered, easy to pronounce and very effectively played out in communications.

The name for a kids’ brand may be not only one word, but a whole phrase. This is another approach to developing names for goods in kids industry. The trick is that such phrases should not be artificial, but taken from everyday communication. And if they are rhymed, then this is just a gift.

According to this principle, we developed the names for domestic baby food product line — «Sami-s-usami» (this funny phase means that we are not stupid, and understand things), which is also eaten by adults, and Busy Lizzy for kids’ fruit purees.

If you are creating a name for the nutrition of the smallest, then it is important to take into account the fact that this is the most conservative and competitive category in the Russian market. To become one of the leaders, you need to come up with a truly non-standard solution. One of such successful solutions is the brand #WhenIGrowUp, for which LINII developed the name, identity and packaging.

Parents are the most anxious audience in the world. They always doubt whether they are doing something right. We came up with an open-ended name that starts with a hashtag to help them feel more confident — #WhenIGrowUp. Imagine a toddler growing up and telling his parents they did everything right. Each brand message at different points of contact with the consumer begins with a similar phrase: When I grow up, I will be strong, I will take care of you, I will be a champion, I will be kind. You can come up with many different variations of the continuation.

The name, despite the length, is well perceived and remembered, because we used a phrase that children often say. Long names are easier to register, #WhenIGrowUp is registered in four classes of the International Classification of Services and Goods at once.

The name, unexpected for the category, always looks advantageous. And it works in the «children’s» sphere too. As an example, the name for the Black Rabbit premium line of diapers from the USA. They are now completely out of the market category. Even in terms of packaging: each diaper is packed individually; it does not irritate in a woman’s handbag, and the general packaging fits well into the home interior: mothers do not need to hide the Black Rabbit box before taking a photo for Instagram.

Unusual and unusual black packaging, it would seem, is not at all about children, but how well it suits parents!

This technique is also used for the Mom & Go baby stroller store, focused on modern parents. Why Mom & Go? Because modern parents live fast. And they will come quickly for the stroller, choose it and go on about their business. The product itself is about speed — strollers in Mom & Go are light and equipped with a bunch of devices, which allows parents to be mobile.

We figured out the techniques for developing the name. No matter what unique name you come up with, you need to apply for registration, having thought in advance which classes of the International Classification for Services and Goods you want to get into.

The scandal between the famous Russian producer Yana Rudkovskaya and an unknown man for using the Gnome Gnomych brand is a clear confirmation that the name needs to be registered as soon as possible. Yana called her son Gnom Gnomych, started his instagram almost from birth. Rudkovskaya widely used this name, but neglected registration. And some enterprising man tracked and registered it. And now, when Yana decided to launch a clothing brand under her son’s nickname, the man steps out of the shadows and demands a decent amount for using the name, which he owns. A very illustrative example: in naming and registering a name, there is a simple rule — the early bird catches the worm. Therefore, do not neglect the registration of the name.

Lately, we at LINII are not developing typical childish names, the time for names like Baby, which was used to name both a baby food brand and a bicycle, is over.

In addition to the baby theme, which no longer looks in the children’s sphere, it is important to take into account the fact that the very attitude towards children has changed. On the modern approach to education, one can build, among other things, the philosophy of the brand, including its name. And of course, it is impossible to enter such a bright market with a neutral name. As for the registration of names, the issue of preliminary verification should be approached very carefully, because a clothing stores, toys are one or two classes, and if you register baby food, then you should check 4-5 classes of the International Classification of Services and Goods. And they are all difficult because they are crowded.

If you entrusted the naming to third-party specialists or a company, ask about guarantees that the name will be protected and unique.