Brand Naming and Strategy for Food Tech Startup
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Branding
- $10,000 to $49,999
- Nov. - Dec. 2019
- Quality
- 5.0
- Schedule
- 5.0
- Cost
- 5.0
- Willing to Refer
- 5.0
"They completely set us up for success."
- Advertising & marketing
- Los Angeles, California
- 1-10 Employees
- Online Review
- Verified
The Naming Group provided naming services for a startup. Their team provided research and information gathering before embarking on a full naming process. The team worked directly with the client.
The Naming Group supplied an excellent name that set the client up for success. their team worked patiently and constructively. The project management was simple and fully integrated into the process. They made everyone's lives much easier.
The client submitted this review online.
BACKGROUND
Please describe your company and your position there.
I am the founder and creative director of Cosma Schema, a global brand strategy, design and experience agency. We focus mostly on the new space economy, however from time to time take on truly innovative projects in other industries. Clients hire us for design and brand strategy work and we’ve engaged The Naming Group multiple times for foundational brand strategy and naming work across all different clients and industries.
OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE
For what projects/services did your company hire The Naming Group?
As mentioned above, The Naming Group is our go-to naming and brand positioning firm. Whenever we have a client in need of brand clarity and naming work, we bring them on to lead the process directly with our clients. For this project in particular, one of our long-term clients in the space sector was creating a new side business in the food tech industry in the Bay Area. We needed a partner who was not going to merely come up with creative ideas. The Naming Group consistently goes above and beyond merely creative naming in that they consider all related language and terminology in a clients’ industry, taking into account the larger communication landscape in which a name will ultimately live.
What were your goals for this project?
Our client needed clarity on how to position and name their company in an extremely crowded, competitive landscape. Their need was also slightly more complex than the average client in that they needed a brand strategy and name that worked well across a very broad market - in major US cities and beyond, reaching into suburban areas, too. The name also had to work within very specific constraints as it would show up on existing software platforms and applications. This meant that the name had to be short and also powerful because it will ultimately be paired alongside other brand names on said platforms. Our client wanted a name that would signify a completely new way of approaching food in everyday life, so, in short, this name had to really nail it.
SOLUTION
How did you select this vendor?
The Naming Group is our preferred partner because their process is the most thorough and has had the most success with our clients. When they are available to work with us, we choose them because their work goes beyond throwing out creative ideas (where other naming consultants and agencies often stop) and instead creates naming criteria that our clients can use to judge the success of the names they are presented with.
The Naming Group also conducts preliminary trademark and URL screening which is valuable to our clients and saves us from having to coordinate those screens with other vendors. I am the primary decision-maker on which partners and vendors we use.
Describe the scope of their work in detail.
There are four main phases that The Naming Group took us through. The first phase was all about gather information, both from the client and many hours of research into their industry, tracking trends in the food tech startup space and examining how consumers use language in this realm. After that, they presented research in a comprehensive brand positioning deck that gave our client language for how to speak about their audience and how to address industry-wide challenges. The Naming Group also delivered their signature “Naming Criteria” - the 4 things we’d use to judge the success of the names they’d present, based on the research and brand strategy. They proceeded to develop two rounds of names along with preliminary trademark screening, mockups to show what the name would look like in context and showed available URLs for each name.
They then helped our client narrow down names and navigate an extremely crowded trademark landscape with the help of a trademark attorney they referred to our client. We could not have been nearly as helpful to our client without The Naming Group interfacing directly with them and with legal counsel. My role in the project was Creative Director. I worked with my team to manage the client and worked with The Naming Group to give feedback on their work throughout the process. That said, there was very little feedback needed - they are pretty plug n’ play!
What was the team composition?
We interfaced with a core team of three people across the project. I like working with The Naming Group because it’s easy to access leadership and they work nimbly and responsively.
RESULTS & FEEDBACK
Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?
After The Naming Group helped our client land on a name, my team and I took over to do the visual design work of creating a logo and visual brand design guidelines. The positioning work that The Naming Group put into the project was absolutely invaluable to my team of designers in the work they did. We referred back to it constantly with the client when presenting our design work. They completely set us up for success. I think a true test of The Naming Group’s skill is their ability to handle difficult decision-makers and stakeholders. On this project, we had an important stakeholder come quite late to the game who was fairly critical of the process and name, despite the rest of the leadership team being on board.
The Naming Group constructively, patiently worked with this team member to help catch them up to speed and feel more comfortable and confident in the name and brand strategy overall. They helped us dodge a serious bullet in this way.
How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?
Totally a breeze. They had no qualms about integrating into our vendor portal and communicating with my team on Slack. Not every vendor we work with is willing to integrate in this way so we’re grateful for The Naming Group’s ability to roll up their sleeves and jump right into our systems and processes. Makes our lives so much easier. They also availed themselves to help us design the scope and proposal for our client which we really appreciate. They give us as much valuable feedback as I hope we give them when working together!
What did you find most impressive about this company?
As usual, The Naming Group far exceeded our and our client’s expectations. The entire client team is on board with the way that The Naming Group helped clarify their positioning and love the name.
They’re excited to launch later this year. It’s worth noting that something this agency consistently does is helps clarify the business strategy of our clients - whether its part of the scope of work or not. They ask critical questions that generally push beyond brand and into company vision and operations. I think the true test of a good partner is one that already feels like a part of your team and at Cosma Schema we certainly feel that way about The Naming Group.
Are there any areas for improvement?
Nope. We are always stoked.
RATINGS
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Quality
5.0Service & Deliverables
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Schedule
5.0On time / deadlines
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Cost
5.0Value / within estimates
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Willing to Refer
5.0NPS