American sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson said, “The real problem with humanity is the following: we have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and god-like technology.” Perhaps nothing encapsulates this theory more than generative AI, a technology likened in power to fire, electricity and the Internet. Yet, for all AI’s promise, it seems the tech giants are determined to, once again, optimize the wrong things.

Dubious Optimization #1: Speedy Communication

It’s tempting to think communication is simple—I mean, two-year-olds can do it—but it’s also insanely complex, especially under challenging circumstances. Getting communication right when so much is a stake is like trying to land a jumbo jet on an islet.

Our sentences and paragraphs, no matter their length, are icebergs—much of the subtext and context is underwater. Listen to an episode of Esther Perel’s incredible podcast, Where Should We Begin?, and you will, in minutes, understand the value of slowing down and unpacking words and phrases to uncover their hidden meanings.

We’ve already accelerated communication with the advent of the Internet, social media and mobile technology. We’re never not connected, and yet hate crimes are on the rise and we’re more divided as a country. Generative AI makes it possible to hurl words and images at each other faster than ever before. How is that going to impact our amygdalas?

What we need instead is to better see, hear and understand each other. That takes more dialogue, more patience and, more than anything, more time. From a marketing perspective, it takes getting to know the deep and complex histories, values and aspirations of our audiences rather than merely chucking the products and services at them we want them to buy. We can’t condescend to them or merely inundate them with more content at ever increasing speeds.

Dubious Optimization #2: Personalized Echo Chambers

Personalization isn’t a new feature of AI, but the stakes have dramatically increased. AI promises to unlock personalization in ways that wouldn’t have been imaginable before, whether that’s translating in real time or creating bespoke content experiences for a single person in seconds.

Our echo chambers have already been reduced, thanks to algorithms that get better and better at curating our searches and feeds. What happens when the size of that echo chamber gets reduced to one?

Belonging is a fundamental human need. In prehistoric times, getting excommunicated from the tribe meant assured death, which is why we are hard-wired to belong. Even though contemporary society makes living solo easier than ever, we still need community. We are a social species. But technology continues to threaten our pro-social tendencies, keeping us parked at home in front of our screens with a false sense of connection and community.

As an English major, one of my favorite things about college was the ability to talk to my professors and peers about books and our writing. It turned what were previously solo activities into group activities. Those discussions created a level of depth, excitement and nuance I never could have gotten alone. That’s what Èmile Durkheim called collective effervescence.

As a society, we are starved for shared joy. That’s one reason Greta Gerwig’s Barbie has been such a box office success. Viewers aren’t just going to the movies, they’re ritualizing a collective experience. Decked out in head-to-toe pink, they create “communal delight and catharsis” as the New York Times’ Michelle Goldberg explained.

Marketers should think about how to bring people together to create a shared sense of belonging. We should aim to make the sum of our campaigns greater than the individual parts. We should make work that connects and grows rather than isolates and shrinks.

Dubious Optimization #3: Removing Friction

Most of us—except for Buddhists—see struggle and pain as things we can and should avoid. Many technological advancements are rooted in trying to eradicate friction. Dating apps remove the fear and uncertainty of dating. Amazon makes shopping as simple as “add to cart.” Google Maps makes it possible to never learn your city’s layout.

But friction is essential to doing our best work, living our most meaningful lives and making the most impact on the world around us. This is what licensed marriage and family therapist and author Vienna Pharaon calls constructive conflict.

Tension makes things interesting. This is why Kara Swisher’s and Scott Galloway’s hit podcast Pivot works so well. They see things differently, argue and, on occasion, see eye to eye. They challenge each other and within that tension, we as listeners get to make up our own minds. There’s space to hold complexity and contradiction, which allows us to see how two things can be true at the same time. It enables a both/and point of view instead of forcing an either/or binary.

The creative process is historically filled with friction, which means it’s slow and inefficient. Agonizing over concepts and forms and details keep creators up at night or lost in thought in the shower. Generative AI promises to fast track the creative process, but a key question remains: does it? What does creativity without pressure look like?

It’s easy to forget that challenges are often critical to success. Where would Michael Jordan be if he wasn’t considered too short to play for his high school varsity team? What would have happened to Steve Jobs if he hadn’t been forced out of Apple in the mid-1980s? What would Taylor Swift sing about if her relationships were all perfect? Intense heat and pressure create diamonds, literally and figuratively.

Big tech needs to better embrace friction, and marketers can help lead the way. We can help reframe friction as a positive. We can help big tech be more comfortable with being uncomfortable, grappling with ambiguity in a way that walks the tightrope with grace and humanity to produce better work.

There’s a Better Way Forward

Big tech should focus on what people can’t do at all or well, especially when it comes to the most pressing issues of our time: climate change, mass extinction, energy scarcity, inequality, preventable death. To be fair, Google’s DeepMind developed AlphaFold, which can accurately predict three-dimensional protein structures. This matters because, as the building blocks of life, the way proteins are structured dictates how they function. Take the coronavirus spike protein, for example. The spikes allow the virus to attach to and then infect other cells. If we can accurately predict the structure of proteins, we can better fight disease and develop new medications more efficiently.

But that’s just one project even if it is an astonishing one. Maybe the tech companies and governments realize they need to tackle bigger, more pressing issues and be more responsible. The recent voluntary commitments are a start to managing AI risks. Still, we can’t afford to cause more problems than we solve with AI. It’s time big tech takes a moment to reassess what is easy to optimize and, instead, asks what it needs to optimize.

As marketers, we have an unprecedented opportunity to influence big tech because we’ve been marrying human insight with data for decades. We know how to go beyond the screen to gather qualitative data. We understand what makes people tick and what resonates with them. We know how to craft stories that bring people together. Now more than ever, what we do matters.

#generativeAI #bigtech #optimization #marketing

The novelist Milan Kundera said, “Business has only two functions—marketing and innovation.” With the rise of generative AI, those two functions might seem more like one. There’s overlap to be sure, but my three decades at Heinrich have taught me that you can’t drive growth without deepening customer relationships.

The numbers people might be tempted to scale growth only with AI. The hype says generative AI can make marketing faster and easier than ever before thanks to tools like ChatGPT or DALL-E that can create content in seconds. Marketers will, in theory, be freed from the blocking and tackling of making and promoting things.

But a key question remains: is it possible to fast-track customer relationships with AI? We’re about to find out. I’m a numbers guy by training, but I worry about the people side of the business. That’s why Heinrich takes a measured approach, balancing growth and humanity through smart optimization.

Smart optimization means efficiency rooted in strategy

The number of new generative AI tools shows no signs of stopping, but brands need to be disciplined when it comes to testing and implementing new AI tools. Otherwise, you’re just throwing away your precious marketing dollars.

Before you start using AI, establish clear objectives by asking these questions:

• What are you trying to accomplish and why?
• What’s working well with your current marketing strategy and tactics and why?
• What’s not working well, and how might it be fixed?
• Where can automation or AI support your goals?
• Will you be able to test and measure it?
• What safety, copyright and compliance risks might AI pose to your brand or business model?
• Can you learn from others’ wins and fails?

You’ve got to start with strategy to know why, how and when you can leverage AI.

Start with data analytics and research

Great marketing is rooted in understanding. Agencies need to know their clients’ business as well as their clients’ customers.

Research and data can give you valuable information about both, but only if you know how to translate it into a cohesive story. Many brands have a ton of data they can’t make sense of because it’s in disconnected platforms and formats. AI can help you cut and slice your data in new ways so you can discover new connections and insights.

AI can help you make predictions when it comes to customer behavior. If you’re a retail brand, you can track which transactions happen when and where. This helps you anticipate trends and shifts in buying behavior before they occur. You’ll shorten the data-analytics cycle and go to market faster with new marketing campaigns and efforts. When you know the why behind the data, you can optimize your marketing plans.

Find the right personalization balance

According to a Salesforce report, 66% of customers expect companies to understand their unique needs and expectations while 52% expect offers to always be personalized. McKinsey promises personalization as one of the great advancements of AI on marketing to enhance unique language, imagery and messaging at scale instantly. AI developers need to balance the kind of personalization that drives results against the level of personalization consumers want. Where on the spectrum from empathetic to creepy will AI-driven personalization fall?

Snapchat’s new My AI raised concern around both safety and user privacy, resulting in 75% one-star reviews from users who called it scary and wanted it gone. AI might not be the growth driver big tech thought it would be. What matters now and moving forward is how consumers react to it. In Snapchat’s case, AI personalization was a brand detractor. If you don’t understand the emotional connections you have with consumers, you risk losing those same connections you spent time and dollars to build.

It comes down to people

Last year seems like the old days now, but brands can’t take a freewheeling, anything-goes attitude toward AI. Smart optimizations focused on incremental improvements can help you navigate changes without wasting time and money. You’ll be able to truly measure which tools get you the most performance improvement. Your customers won’t feel blindsided with new features that feel invasive or off-putting. You’ll have the insight you need to shift gears efficiently.

You can’t care only about the numbers. At Heinrich, we gut-check our data-based assumptions. We ensure people remain part of the equation at the beginning, middle and end. Because we’re not trying to market to algorithms—we’re marketing to people.

#AI #marketing #brand

The proliferation of digital-communications channels means more inundation for today’s consumers. As brands have increased the quantity of their messages, consumers have gotten more adept at ignoring them, especially those they find irrelevant and inauthentic.

I like to think about brand marketing like fly fishing. As a brand, you’re casting your fly into the river, hoping to interest a fish. As a consumer, you’re a smart fish. You’re not going to get fooled by just any fly. It’s got to look, feel and smell like a real insect. The brands that offer the truly irresistible fly will catch the most fish.

The brands that effectively communicate their humanity stand out. Here’s why.

Understand Brand Humanity

Consumers are just people. This goes for individual consumers as well as business consumers. While it’s obvious, it’s also easy to forget, especially when operational efficiency, profits, data and technology are thrown into the mix. All that matters to be sure, but when you lose sight of your audience, your brand’s humanity falters.

People want to do business with people who know, understand and respect them. They don’t want to feel crushed by processes, sucked dry by bureaucratic policies or pummeled by robotic messages. To truly empathize with your audience, you need to understand what they care most about, how they want to be interacted with and how they want to be seen, understood and respected. That takes time, and it takes doing your homework continually. It’s not a one-and-done situation because people change.

Today’s digital world—and sometimes even the analog one—feels more and more inauthentic and robotic. Often, we see only curated views. While that can be attractive at first glance, it’s like being on a perpetual first date. It’s not real enough. It doesn’t ring true to our daily experiences that showcase the range of human emotions and ideas.

On the flip side, when a brand is unapologetically human, we can’t help but notice. Take REI’s commitment to the environment. Obviously, the outdoors are essential to its business. People can’t buy hiking boots or kayaks if there isn’t a natural environment in which to enjoy those items. Their mission—that a life outdoors is a life well lived—is bigger than boots and boats. It’s a message about the transformational power of nature that’s resonated with consumers since 1938. They don’t just sell things, they sell meaning. That’s as human as it gets.

Bringing Your Brand’s Humanity to Life

Think about your favorite hotel and why you love it. Chances are, it’s not for the technology, it’s for the people and the experience they give you. They are emotionally intelligent. The front-desk attendant can tell if you’ve had a rough journey to get there. The concierge can suss out if you want a night out on the town or an intimate romantic dinner. They’re curious about you. They bring some originality and maybe even some humor to the conversation to keep it interesting and build a relationship.

Great brands do the same thing. They aim to get to the essence of their consumers’ emotions. They tap into deeper insights to articulate what was previously unarticulated in a way that resonates most. Then they check in to see if they got it right and adjust as needed.

Humor and stories are two areas to focus on as well. A new study by Cornell shows that humans outperform AI when it comes to humor two to one. Humor can be many things: subversive, surprising, delightful, illuminating, profound. What it is most is human.

The same goes with stories. We learn best through story. That’s why myth, allegory, fairy tales, novels and films are so powerful. We do better with small, concrete moments vs. huge abstractions and numbers because details are more relatable to us. Brands that lean into story give consumers an easy point of connection. That could be the story behind a product or service, of your employees or of your customers.

Speaking of story, Storytellers is one of my all-time favorite Heinrich projects. It features video testimonials of four different Medicare Advantage members: Van, Georgette and Judy and Duane (who are married). Viewers get their personal histories and experiences as Medicare Advantage members and patients. Van talks about his past as a long-haul trucker, how bad knees took him off the road but how he’s reclaimed his identity as a school bus driver thanks to his healthcare plan and providers. Georgette’s vivaciousness comes through in her bold fashion choices and Zumba moves. Judy and Duane’s marriage, full of sweetness and humor, is made better by better health. I can’t say how many times I’ve watched them, and they still bring tears to my eyes every time.

Don’t Outsource Humanity to Artificial Intelligence

Silicon Valley might be touting the promises of generative artificial intelligence (gen AI), but brands need to be cautious, especially when it comes to messaging. Right now, gen AI is like generic verbal oatmeal—bland and a minimally viable product. A flattening or deadening effect happens to the language. It lacks nuance. Prompting hacks like “in the style of” might work well for famous authors, but they probably won’t work as well for brands.

Brands that do decide to outsource their creative to gen AI risk devaluing and dehumanizing their brands. I see a parallel between gen AI and direct mail marketing a couple of decades ago. It used to be about quantity and frequency, basically just blanketing geographies and hoping for the best. Today, it’s an ineffective and ill-informed strategy. You might also risk getting key information wrong, infringing on others’ copyrights or perpetuating bias.

Great Brands—and Agencies—Put Their People First

People are a company’s greatest capital resource. Today’s business leaders need to understand what people do well and what technology does well. The goal shouldn’t be to replace people but to create a complementary relationship. Technology helps automate repetitive tasks, support research and analyze data. People bring their emotional intelligence, originality and sense of humor. The rapid pace of change demands transparency, especially around strategy and process as well as empathy and foresight. At Heinrich, we believe in teeing up our staff for future success, whether that future is with us or another company, because we believe in honing our skills. That dedication shows our respect for our craft and it’s how we celebrate it. Every. Day. Creative.

Marketing efforts are more scrutinized today than ever. There are also more channels than ever before. There’s a paradox at play: more risk, but more opportunity too. Brands need to know how to build the right strategy to meet consumers in the right places at the right times to move the needle. To do that as effectively and efficiently as possible, brands need an agency partner with omnichannel expertise.

What Omnichannel Marketing is and Why it Matters to Your Brand

Omnichannel marketing makes the best use of all available channels to connect with consumers on their journeys. It combines traditional and digital marketing into a holistic approach based on consumer needs and business objectives. It examines which channels are best at different points in the consumer journey for an integrated campaign. With an integrated campaign, each channel and consumer touchpoint reinforce the others so you can maximize your efforts, budget and results.

Today’s channel landscape is constantly changing, especially on the digital side. There’s always a new platform to join or features to explore. Brands can’t take a one-size-fits-all or check-the-box approach to channels. Each campaign needs to start with the consumer journey, data and business objectives. Once you have these outlined, you can build a custom omnichannel strategy that elevates your brand and your products or services.

Why Brands Need Agencies with Omnichannel Expertise

As the marketing channel ecosystem continues to fragment, it can be tempting to piecemeal campaigns across different channel-specific agencies. However, that can create a fragmented, inconsistent consumer experience with different agencies working in silos or even at cross purposes. The best way to maintain brand and messaging consistency is with a single agency who has deep omnichannel knowledge and proven results.

With a holistic plan under a single agency, brands get a global view of their efforts and are better positioned to connect the dots on their campaign and customer data. They can better optimize the entire plan instead of just its legs. Rather than start from a channel point of view, brands can start from the consumer’s point of view to create an overarching strategy. It’s about giving consumers what they need and want, which creates better relationships, while achieving business objectives.

What to Look for in an Omnichannel Agency Partner

It goes without saying that an omnichannel agency partner needs to be an expert in both traditional and digital channels. They need to have the diversity of expertise and experience to pull the campaign off. Here’s what to look for.

Data Expertise and Insights

Without insights or cohesive narrative, data is just a bunch of numbers. Brands have more data than ever at their fingertips, yet most don’t know how to unlock the narratives buried inside it, whether that’s demographic, financial or engagement data. Your omnichannel agency partner should be able to examine all the data you have and provide even more context and understanding with third-party data-service providers. They should be able to humanize the data to uncover consumer mindsets and behavior patterns. How do they feel? What makes them tick? How do they shop? Brands need an agency partner who can help them think through their data and bring an outside perspective to it too.

Rooted in Strategy

It’s easy to just start making and deploying things. With an omnichannel approach, you first need to step back to move forward. Omnichannel agencies should be experts at marrying consumer needs with business goals. They should take deep, ongoing dives into the industry category, business model, specific brand and consumers. From here, they can develop a solid strategic framework that ties everything together. This level of deep understanding is like a tree’s taproot. The campaign strategy becomes the tree trunk, and the channels the branches. Without deep roots, the whole tree crashes to the ground.

Measurement, Attribution, Evaluation and Testing Capabilities

Omnichannel agency partners must be able to prove their effectiveness. They need to know how they will measure the plan’s objectives and which metrics are the best to do so. They need to be able to successfully attribute increases in reach and revenue to their efforts. They need to know not only what’s working or not but why and how to optimize moving forward. They need to be able to effectively test which elements of a plan work best.

Born for Business in Theory and Practice

It’s one thing to talk about omnichannel strategy and another to execute it. At Heinrich, we do both. We’re passionate students of our clients’ businesses and dedicated to building relationships that last. We take the time to dig in to understand our clients, their goals and their consumers’ needs. We have the processes and tools to bring everything together, from strategy to execution, deployment to evaluation. We lead our clients with an eye toward the future. At Heinrich, we don’t just do work that’s creative; we do work that gets results. That’s why we’re born for business—your business.

#marketingstrategy #marketingagency

Uncertainty, it’s the ever-present excuse to shy away from trying something new with your brand and marketing. Whether it’s global current affairs or internal company concerns, the lack of predictability in the world makes it intimidating to try novel creative concepts. But uncertainty should drive creative exploration rather than limit it. Keeping your marketing team ready to try new things, think on their feet, and move forward with well-planned ideas keeps your brand adaptable so that it can thrive in a world of constant change. The process that’s required to discover bold ideas not only ignites intelligent thinking, but it pushes your team’s collective creativity as well.

At first, telling leadership they should or need to take risks with creative output might appear mockingly heroic. Whether it’s revamping your website, playing with new taglines, or incorporating different design elements, all of it can sound costly and time-consuming. But does your brand have the time and money to be irrelevant and boring?

Creative risk-taking isn’t as hedonistic as it first appears when it’s calculated risk-taking. We can’t scrap brand guidelines or forget where we came from. Calculated risk-takingis about maintaining authenticity and relevance while forging new paths to your audiences’ hearts. The benefit for clients is that it distills what’s most captivating about their brands while igniting the kinetic energy that keeps audiences intrigued.

Finding the Time

Fostering a healthy process for ideation is a good place to begin taking calculated risks. Actively seek opportunities for your creative team to branch out of their comfort zones. Advertising, marketing, and branding teams intrinsically want to create—they feel rewarded and invigorated when you unleash their minds to discover. Brilliant ideas need a place to exercise so that they can grow. Opportunities for these brainstorming endeavors won’t pop up on their own. Set aside time to explore those concepts that you’ve been kicking around.

A space free of breakneck deadlines is ideal. The goal of these brainstorming sessions might be more analytical than a lot of the daily tasks you ask of your team. Style guides have some good avenues to go down if you’re stumped on topics to focus on. Perhaps there’s a brand pillar that everyone in the company seems to interpret differently—use that as a topic and spend a meeting mapping it out. This could lead you to questions that your audience has been wondering about too. Team building and growing trust are two biproducts of these types of brainstorming meetings that can help you justify the time and resources necessary for creative play time.

Keep it Fun

People need to feel comfortable to get wild, and the best ideas fall somewhere between the absurd and the obvious—to get there, make your team feel like they can voice anything and everything. Some argue for shelving every idea (even the really bad ones), no matter how off-the-wall they might seem initially. Best of all, you’re elevating trust through these processes when you let people get weird with ideas. Humans want to feel like they’re discovering and not just going through the motions. A culture of trust makes it easier for people to share, and this allows decision-makers to have the information they need to operate with an analytical perspective, keeping risks calculated and not a guessing game.

If you need help creating an ideation process for your brand’s creative concepting and execution, hire an agency. Find one that’s been around for a while. Older agencies have weathered more changes than the younger ones and have seen what works and what doesn’t. You might also find that they care more about client success than winning awards for themselves.

Listen to Creatives

Whether you’ve hired an agency or have a robust in-house creative team, listen to your expert writers and designers with patience and an open mind. It’s easy to fall into the same thought patterns in creative reviews. Hiring intelligent people and not listening to them isn’t the best use of your time. It’s like buying an expensive candy bar, then taking the time to dissect all the peanuts out, when all you originally wanted was a few peanuts.

Are You Playing it too Safe?

There’s no definitive checklist for knowing if you’re playing it too safe with creative output, but a positive place to begin is asking yourself, “Are we doing the same thing and hoping for different results?” This notion is raised in famous quotes and countless motivational talks, but it’s rarely embraced with sincerity. Posing this question productively is challenging because identifying what “doing the same thing” looks like can feel subjective. The purpose of cultivating a culture where ideas have room to play, creatives are listened to, and ideation is fun, supports fearless conversations. And this sense of fearlessness is essential for healthy discussions that lead you to the exploratory creative work that your brand’s audience is looking for.

New ideas can be scary and, at times, even sound foolish. The creators of one of the most successful video games of all time had to go to their boss and say: I have an idea for a game where mustachioed, Italian plumbers hunt down mushrooms in plumbing while fending off turtles in hopes of finding a princess in the piping. Super Mario Brothers is now a household name despite how absurd that idea sounds. Learn to see creatives’ new ideas as opportunities to explore more and dig deeper. Stay fearless while brainstorming. Grow trust with your creative team through team-building ideation time and, most importantly, don’t take the risk of playing it safe.

These days, change feels like it happens at an exponential quantity and pace. It’s no secret that this puts brands in a tough spot. Brands, after all, are supposed to stand for something, but they also need to evolve with the rest of the world. That’s where agencies come in.

A Paradox at Play

When uncertainty abounds, there’s a tendency to flee to certainty. A boon on the one hand, brands can act as sanctuaries of consistency and reliability in times of uncertainty. Go to any Marriott in the world, and you know exactly what to expect. On the other hand, tastes and expectations evolve. Brands can’t be complacent or dig in their heels against change. They must embrace it.

Take Nike. Their “Just do it” slogan continues to resonate since it was rolled out in the late 1980s. Nick DePaula, an NBA feature writer, explained to NPR, “Not only was the slogan great, and also approachable and vague enough that anybody could apply it to whatever it was they were trying to aspire to do.” They’ve used it to inspire more empowerment and social progress for gender and racial equity, among other causes.

Nike managed to walk the tightrope of staying consistent to their brand while morphing it at the same time. You can bet their agency of record played an essential role in helping them navigate that paradoxical truth.

How Agencies Help Brands Navigate Waves of Change

An Objective, Knowledgeable Voice

Agencies have the unique position of being simultaneous insiders and outsiders. They can see from the inside: they understand the business and the brand, they understand the risks and the opportunities. And they see the brand from the outside: as consumers see it, as competitors see it. As a result, they’re able to stay more objective and clearer headed, seeing facts through an empathetic lens from the points of view of both the business and the consumers.

Uncover Insights and Stories within the Data

Data drives much decision-making today. As helpful as it is, it’s only part of the story, especially because much data is historical and lacks context. The numbers and charts can’t help if you can’t glean the narratives within them. An agency can help you take your data and turn it into a cohesive story with the development of personas, competitive analyses and trend reports. This helps you make your data actionable. The closer your predictive data can be to real time, the more empowered you’ll be to make impactful decisions.

A Flexible, Opportunistic Mindset

Most agencies are like speed boats to a brand’s tanker. They’re able to turn more quickly, speed ahead, do reconnaissance and zip back to the tanker. They can spot a competitor’s misstep and explain how the brand can take advantage of it. They can encourage more innovation and nudge brands to push the envelope in both small and big ways. They help the brand avoid falling into autopilot mode, coasting on its size, by pushing it to new horizons. Agencies help free up brands to focus on what they do best—run their business—by taking on the marketing.

What Brands Should Look for in an Agency

Agencies are people, so brands need to find one with the right talent that’s forward-thinking, nimble and integrated. Here’s why.

With unprecedented change afoot, challenging the status quo needs to happen more rapidly and frequently than ever before. To do that, brands need to work with agencies who are focused on the future. Looking ahead means being curious in the here and now by devouring information, connecting dots in new and unusual ways and seeking out opportunity at every possible turn.

Next, agencies need to be both nimble and level-headed. It’s not enough to simply respond; they also need to sift through mountains of information to separate what’s important from what isn’t. Without clarity and purpose, nimbleness can quickly devolve into chaos. For example, Heinrich strategists know how to keep their eyes on the destination and that there are any number of ways to get there.

Last, look for an integrated agency. While it’s tempting to piecemeal your marketing efforts across specialty agencies—paid media here, social there—an integrated agency can connect dots across your entire marketing ecosystem. Writer David Epstein argues that generalists can perform better in uncertainty, saying, “The more varied your training is, the better able you’ll be to apply your skills flexibility to situations you haven’t seen.” An agency with both depth and breadth of in-house talent, like Heinrich has, is the same. Brands can tap into that diverse, coordinated skills set to better ride the waves of uncertainty as they occur.

The right agency partner awaits, one that’s born for business and can lead your brand from where it is today to where it needs to be tomorrow. That’s how Heinrich shows up—every single day.

Most creatives agree that a naming project is one of the best—yet most challenging—parts of the branding process. And, while it is extremely fun and satisfying, naming can also be slightly nerve-wracking. Why? Think of it this way—it’s the first step in taking your client’s brand off the page and into the world, the first thing people see when they interact with it, and the maker (or breaker) of first impressions. That’s a lot of firsts and a lot of pressure. 

Luckily, Heinrich has a trusted naming process that combines a ton of insights and strategy, a bunch of research, and a healthy dose of branding expertise.  

Step 1: Discovery and Strategy 

Know who the brand is before you name it. 

The first step in any successful naming project is to not start with naming at all. You’re probably sitting there thinking, “Wait, I came here to learn about how to name a brand and now you’re telling me I can’t?” Here’s the thing. You can’t name a brand if you don’t know who the brand is. So, if you don’t have a brand strategy yet, you need to back up and start at step one of the overall branding process: the client discovery session.  

During this session, you’ll sit down with your client and get to know everything about their brand—from the nitty-gritty details to their preferences and vision. These are the learnings that will influence how your brand strategy is created and, in turn, how that strategy influences the name. 

Hot tip: Be sure to reserve time during this conversation to ask specific naming questions. This will help you determine what kind of name your clients are drawn to and why. To get the conversation going, come prepared with a list of different naming styles and structures (like the ones below) and see what piques their interest. 

Types of Naming 

When you look up different types of brand names, you’ll find that there are many opinions on how to categorize them. But when you get down to it, most names can be put into the following structures and styles. With that, there is bound to be some overlap. For example, PayPal is a descriptive name that uses both an alliteration and a compound structure. Whereas Mailchimp is a playful name using a compound noun of real words. Keep in mind that your names do not have to fall neatly into one of these buckets, but getting input from your clients can help add some spark and guideposts to your brainstorming process. 

 

Name-Structure Examples 

• Alliterative: American Airlines, Best Buy 

• Acronym: IBM, AT&T 

• Compound: PayPal, Coinbase 

• Real Word(s): Dove, Target 

• Misspelled: Froot Loops, Lyft 
   

Name-Style Examples 

• Playful: Mailchimp, Tushy  

• Metaphoric: Amazon, Tinder  

• Historical/Origin: Saks Fifth Avenue, Dairy Block  

• Founder: Disney, Ben & Jerry’s  

• Geographical/Location-Based: Cisco, Florida’s Natural  

• Coined: Verizon, Pantone  

• Descriptive: Whole Foods, Comedy Central   

• Invented: Kodak, Häagen-Dazs  

• Combined: Fabletics, Pinterest 
   

Step 2: Research and Write 

Turn your strategy into a creative distinction. 

Taking everything you learned during the discovery session, it’s time to get to work. To start, consider which types of names your client is interested in, consult the brand strategy for insights and themes, and use all this information to create some naming buckets for yourself.  

Then, dive in.  
Go down the research rabbit hole.  
See what competitors are doing and why.  
Search for interesting nuggets and good stories. For rich histories and curious details that will make the brand stand out.  
Leave no Internet stone unturned.  
Looking for a name with a geographical tie? What about something metaphorical that connects the brand ethos to its vision? See where those roads lead.  
Use your research to write 10 names. Then 10 more. 
Think of ways to modify, combine, and invent.  
Keep writing, and keep going back to the strategy. 
Continue pushing until you have a handful of names that you’re confident fit with who the brand is and what it stands for.  

Here are some examples of names Heinrich has developed for our various real estate branding clients. Watch for them around the Denver Metro in the coming year. 

Step 3: Narrow and Vet

Lots of names are good. Instead, let’s be smart. 

After you’ve organized your massive list of name options and why they make sense for the brand, it’s time to narrow down to your top five best options. 

Before you begin, let’s define what makes a “good” brand name. Like most artistic endeavors, this can be a bit subjective. But if you ask us (and you should since we have lots of experience), it isn’t just about coming up with a “good” name, it’s about coming up with a smart one.  

Here are nine things Heinrich considers when deciding which names to present to our clients:  

1. It’s memorable. 

2. It’s distinct and not being used within the competitive landscape. 

3. It has meaning, or meaning can be created around it. 

4. It fits your strategy and embodies your brand positioning and personality. 

5. It’s accessible; your customers can easily learn to say it, spell it, interpret it, or Google it. 

6. It’s appealing and resonates with your target audience. 

7. It’s appropriate, not appropriating, and avoids negative concepts. 

8. It sounds good. 

9. It looks good. 

Obviously, a few items on this list are, as previously mentioned, subjective. So how do you avoid having you or your client choose a name based on your personal preference? You vet. If you don’t have the budget or resources to hold an official focus group, create an informal one on your own. Find people in your social circle who fit the target audience of this brand and ask them what they think. Take notes, be honest with yourself, and kill your darlings. That super-cool name with a great rationale that, deep down, you know is way too complicated or hard to pronounce? Nix it.  

For a real-world example, consider Heinrich’s recent real estate branding project for a Trammel Crow and Greystar apartment complex in Denver’s Central Park neighborhood. For this name, we were inspired by a few things:  

1. The neighborhood where the property lives was once home to Denver’s Stapleton International Airport.  

2. Our strategy informed us that this brand’s audience was looking to enter a new chapter of life filled with movement, growth, and discovery.  

The result? Elevon. Originally a term for aircraft surfaces that combine the functions of two instruments for pitch and roll control, the name Elevon was clearly inspired by the geographical history of the area as well as encouraging residents to live a life in motion they so desire. 

Step 4: Present and Select  

Sell the story and the strategy. 

Now that you’ve narrowed down your favorites, it’s time to share with the client. One of the best ways to get your client excited and on board with what you’re proposing is to put together a well-crafted presentation. Don’t just email your hard work to them and hope for the best. Instead, start by reviewing the approved brand strategy as a refresher, and then move into sharing each name. Be sure each option is presented with a strong rationale and background so the client can understand the story and meaning.  

Hopefully, the client will love what you’ve come up with and immediately select a name. But if they don’t, you can either head back to your original list to see if there are any other options that align with their feedback or go back to step two and give the whole thing another go.  

So how do you make a name for yourself?  

First and foremost, know that a brand name is much more than words on a page or logo on a website. Ultimately, a name needs to embody the essence of the brand and resonate with its target audience in a way that makes them want to be a part of the story. It’s a daunting task, no doubt, but Heinrich is clearly passionate about the process and ready to help. To get started, send us a message, or give our branding team a shout at hello@heinrich.com.