When our first Australian client came knocking this past spring they had a big branding problem. Their company name was “Crafty Kids,” a legacy name that began when they sold children’s arts and crafts projects to moms from a flea market booth. Flash forward nearly 15 years and they were now selling scrapbooking supplies, stamping products and embellishing items through a national network of consultants and distributors — and the vast majority of their audience was now women 30 to 60 — with no kid oriented craft products in their inventory. Talk about needing a name change!

After an extensive search and review, the finalists came down to Flair Creations and Pizzazz Creative. Discussions turned to a new product line the client had recently introduced called “Kasz” and ways in which that invented word might be incorporated into the name. Cheryl Devlin, a Crafty Kids consultant, made the suggestion of “Kaszazz.” Another top consultant, Sonya Edwards, stepped in to provide the tag line “Stamp, Scrap, Embellish.” The exact matching .com domain name was available and the Kaszazz name reinforced one of their star product lines — so the client pulled the trigger. Tungsten then provided several logo ideas/treatments and South Australian designer Kristy Baldock created the finished logo design. Talk about a team effort!

The unusual spelling may prove problematic initially, but since they have an established product with the same initial spelling, it will most likely gain traction quickly. Overall, the name is unusual, engaging, and playful. It’s interruptive in the sense that it’s uniqueness begs for more explanation. And with the right tag line, such as “Give your life some pizzazz!” it will only help to further enhance and support the new brand name. So things are looking up for our mates down under. Instead of being seen as selling cheap art projects to kids, they are now viewed as a company offering creative fun for everyone… and that definitely has more pizzazz!

Not all invented/coined words are created equal. Some have no linguistic basis and therefore no meaning (i.e. Xerox, Kodak, etc.) Every ounce of brand equity then has to be earned and instilled through years of hard work, money and gradual customer acquisition. Most entrepreneurs and start ups don’t have the luxury of time or money on their side.

So when creating new names from scratch, we tend to look for ones that contain a “morpheme” or word part that directly relates to one of the client’s main attributes. These words come preloaded with emotional equity that steers the listener down an intended path. In this case our client was in the information/knowledge management business. The key benefit they offered was their insights and perspectives in dealing with, and organizing, legacy information systems. What we wanted to capture was the sense of clarity, insight, brilliance and expertise they provided. The final result was Claricent… “See more. Know more. Do more.” The name flows well and evokes the right emotional tone. Invented names are just one of many different naming strategies, but if done well, they can still connect and communicate a message effectively.