How to Name Your Life Sciences Company: A Name Is More than a Name

This is the first in a series of posts on how to name your life sciences company. Stay tuned to future posts.

If you’re about to name a new life sciences company or a product, you will need to know how to create and choose a name, right?

Before I get into the mechanics of name creation, let’s step back and define what is a name? Actually.

A name is more than a name.

That is, a name is more than just the word that is linked to your company, or product, or service.

The name you develop will be the most compressed marketing and advertising message you will ever use.

Your name will need to be flexible so that it works in a variety of contexts (more on this later). Your name will also need to scale for the future. If it is a company name, take some time to imagine what the company does now and what the company will grow into as time progresses. If you are naming a product or service, think of the larger suite of products and services that will exist in the future.

Know that your company or product name is able to inspire a variety of desired actions, including motivating:

• consumers to buy
• potential employees to seek you out
• investors to contribute
• individuals to develop a relationship with your product or company.

Consider the example of Apple’s iPod. When first introduced to the market, the iPod was a simple MP3 player. As new models and variations were developed and marketed, new names were added to the original iPod name. Today there are the iPod Classic, iPod Nano, iPod Shuffle, iPod touch, and of course, iTunes, the store where one can buy and download music, movies, and TV shows for the iPod.

Apple chose to brand all of its MP3 products leveraging the iPod name. That makes it simple for them to expand the product line without confusing consumers.

Had Apple chosen to name their MP3 player something like Apple Music Player, the product (and brand) extension may not have been as effective.