(EMAILWIRE.COM, October 11, 2011 ) Goshen, MA – According to many business owners and nonprofits that need a catchy new name on a non-existent budget, the no-brainer answer to their dilemma is a naming contest. “Sometimes such crowdsourcing works out exactly as hoped, but more often, one or more hidden pitfalls of putting the naming project out for suggestions crops up,” says naming expert Marcia Yudkin, founder of the naming company Named At Last (www.namedatlast.com).
Naming Contest Pitfall #1: Making competitive information public. To facilitate on-target names, you must provide strategic information about your company or product – how it differs from the competition. Are you certain that you want to put on the public record the advantages and disadvantages of your offering vis-à -vis other companies, products or organizations? If you think this kind of openness might turn around and bite you later, do not run a contest. Hire a naming company instead, confidentially.
Naming Contest Pitfall #2: Insufficient entries. If you already have tons of followers on Facebook, Twitter and Linked In, as well as the capacity to get the media and colleagues interested in spreading the word about your contest, terrific! But if not, be aware that you might not generate the buzz needed to inspire sufficient high-quality entries. And when youÂ’ve promised a prize for the winner, then what?
Naming Contest Pitfall #3: Unwise selection procedure. Do not under any circumstances promise to award the name to the suggestion that gets the most number of votes. Why? Because the voting process is highly susceptible to irrelevant influences. When NASA requested name ideas for a new room on future American space stations, a popular TV show host told his fans to suggest it be named after him. The comedian received 40,000 more votes than the next most popular name, and NASA had a public relations problem on its hands.
Naming Contest Pitfall #4: No vetting process. Also remember that contest or no contest, names generally have to be pronounceable, spellable, distinct from names that are already trademarked or used by close competitors, meaningful to your core customers and unlikely to offend them, and more. Avoid getting carried away by enthusiasm for a clever name that is overly trendy, obscure or legally troublesome by setting out a clear, explicit internal set of steps and criteria for screening name suggestions prior to launching the contest.
“The Australian division of a world-famous food company fell into the last of these traps,” says Yudkin, “when it asked the public to suggest names for a new product, selected an entry as the winner from some 50,000 submissions, then had to retract their announcement four days later because it caused a national uproar of fierce derision. You don’t want that kind of public embarrassment!”
Named At Last, YudkinÂ’s company, offers a set of free steps for generating a catchy new company name or a creative product name, available at http://www.namedatlast.com/19steps.htm .
