Renaming Hot Iron Brands to Stand Out
A company name change is significant. Why, and how, did we do it?
Hot Iron Brands set out to refine its visual identity system so that it could build a consistent look and feel that reflected its brand promise. One thing seemed to be getting in the way: its name.
Project Objectives
Create a name that would pique the audience’s curiosity and make them want to learn more.
Create a name that offered a feeling and promise that fit with the brand’s objectives.
Create a name that would offer a way to talk to potential clients about how they see the world.
Key Findings
We determined three directions to use during naming development. Each of which could represent our brand offer: Exploration/ Investigation, Clarity/ Focus, and Guide/ Navigation.
We explored over 150 different beliefs, feelings, words, and metaphors as inputs while developing name candidates, all grounded in the three directions above.
From our long list of 51 names, we narrowed down to a short-list of 8 names. Of the Final 3, Qwerry came out on top.
Hot Iron Brands -> Qwerry
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Established: 2019
Employees: 5
Location: Washington, DC
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Qwerry’s researchers are all certified in Data Storytelling
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Naming
Introduction / Challenge
Hot Iron Brands set out to refine its visual identity system so that it could build a consistent look and feel that reinforced its brand promise: to help marketers, brand leaders, and business owners build cohesive brand strategies that resonate externally and internally, gaining consensus in their organizations along the way. That is, to help organizations drive brand growth through discovery and alignment.
One thing seemed to be getting in the way: the name. During initial steps with our graphic design partner, Nicole Mattson Designs, we developed mood boards and initial design drafts to evolve Hot Iron Brands, and we found that our evolution approach wasn’t quite working. Building a design system around our initial name, Hot Iron Brands, was limiting us from reflecting what we wanted to convey: our research-based approach and our curiosity, logic, and storytelling. So, we decided to explore a full rename and rebrand - a revolution instead of an evolution.
Our Goal
Our objective was to develop and choose a new name that would pique our target audience’s curiosity and reflect what we promise our clients – a path to brand growth through discovery and alignment. We aimed to create a name that suggested a feeling and promise that fit with our offer, and a way to talk to potential clients about how they see the world.
Our Approach
Our naming process takes a 10-step, structured approach. Though 10 steps may sound like a lot, we were able to move quickly working in sprints, and choose a new name, with confidence, in 4 weeks. Some of our client naming projects may take a little longer, usually dependent upon how settled they are in their current brand positioning and strategy.
NAMING STEPS AT-A-GLANCE
1. Explore brand positioning
2. Brainstorm beliefs and feelings
3. Conduct exploratory research
4. Name storm
5. Develop a name long-list
6. Prescreen the name long-list
7. Conduct an internal poll
8. Identify the naming short-list
9. Prepare stories for the short-list
10. Conduct external testing
“Qwerry’s approach was logical, drawing from market insights and business strategy to get us started with a solid foundation for naming, but it was also creative and fun. We went down interesting “wiki-holes” and learned a lot of cool things. Ultimately, we created the name Qwerry which fits the company and the team so well.”
— NICOLE MATTSON, NICOLE MATTSON DESIGNS
Our Approach: In Detail
EXPLORE BRAND POSITIONING
We look under the hood for different ways to express the brand’s promise. These provide anchors and areas of focus for us build upon during naming strategy and development.
BRAINSTORM FEELINGS AND BELIEFS
We explore the beliefs and feelings we want a name to suggest, and various words and metaphors that represent them – all aligned to anchors from step 1.
CONDUCT EXPLORATORY RESEARCH
This is the fun part! Here, we go down wiki-holes and research journeys to find terms, concepts, and obscure references with interesting connections to the beliefs, feelings, words, and metaphors from above. This helps us come up with a wide variety of unique name candidates.
NAME STORM
At this point we bring our findings from steps 1-4 together to develop a long list of name candidates. We cross-check against different types of names to ensure we come up with a list that is truly diverse. Another fun trick and sub-step here is to do a Naming Mad Libs Exercise. We put names into different premade headlines to see how they may sound in the real world.
DEVELOP THE NAME LONG-LIST
Here we examine the names from name storming and the results of our different sub-exercises and we narrow down to a long list of names that is manageable for pre-screening.
PRESCREEN THE NAME LONG LIST
In this multi-step process, we are looking to cut out names that are not viable. This involves:
1) an initial web search for the name + category of business
2) a basic trademark search with the US Patent and Trademark office and a global brand database
3) checking for URL availability, noting what is available in place of a pure .com domain
CONDUCT AN INTERNAL POLL
To get involvement and gain early buy-in, we conduct an internal poll asking just a few short questions of employees, such as which names would be motivating to work on and bring to life and which they would they really not like to work on or for. We also ask them to walk in their audiences’ shoes and choose names that would catch their attention first if they were searching for a brand in the category.
IDENTIFY THE NAME SHORT LIST
Our goal is to land on a short list of up to 9 names (2-3 per territory from step 1, assuming no more than 3 territories). To do this we analyze our internal poll results, prioritize our long list, and then run it through a battery of evaluative criteria to ensure we are following strong naming guidelines and that nothing slipped through the cracks.
PREPARE STORIES FOR THE SHORT LIST
A name is just a name until you bring it to life, and people remember stories. So, once we narrow down our list to 2-3 names per territory, we build out a short story for each territory and name. This helps us think about future elevator pitches for each name and to finally choose a Top 3 Short List. Then we build out why each name works, an interesting dialogue one might have about the name, and URL availability. Here’s an example of the interesting dialogue we built for Qwerry and example of the type of story we create for our clients’ to use with their own networks or potential customers:
New Acquaintance: “Hi, I’m Mary.”
You: “Hi, I’m Joe.”
New Acquaintance: “Hi Joe, what do you do?”
You: “I work for Qwerry”
New Acquaintance: “What is Qwerry”
You: “Well, ‘Qwerry’ is a variation of the words quarry and query. One of the earliest forms of branding was marking stones for statues with their quarry source. And query can be summarized as asking validating questions.”
New Acquaintance: “Interesting combo.”
You: “Yeah, we do research-led branding. We ask the right questions and analyze data so we can help clients grow their brands. We help them make decisions based on data so they aren’t guessing.”
CONDUCT EXTERNAL TESTING
Finally, we conduct external market research to test performance of the final short list. To do this, we build out 3 different mock logo styles - appropriate for the category but generic enough to fit with all Top 3 names. We ask a few simple questions (these vary by project), randomizing and rotating the name-visual combinations. This allows us to test names in context of the category, control for design influences, and evaluate results of the names themselves. We do this because it’s hard for people to assess a name alone – so we don’t ask them about names directly.
“Qwerry”
Our Top 3 Names in consideration were Dodif, Lascaux, and Qwerry. When we conducted external testing, Qwerry scored higher on all three metrics we measured, and significantly higher on the question about Qwerry’s story, which we took to heart since we know that people remember stories more than facts and figures or even, names.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Which of these branding/ market research companies stands out to you the most?
If you searched for branding/ market research companies and these were your results, which would you click on first?
Please read the story behind each of these branding and market research companies. Which is most interesting to you as a potential buyer of their services?
These results tipped the odds in favor of Qwerry and that’s what we chose. We’re quite happy with it and have received positive feedback from clients and non-clients alike. We hope you like the name too, but more importantly, we hope that you like the structured approach we use that balances logic, creativity, and research to develop names that are uniquely positioned to capture an audience’s attention.
54%
Respondents who said Qwerry’s story was the most interesting to them as a potential buyer of their services, significantly higher than other names in the Top Three:
Qwerry (54%)
Lascaux (26%)
Dodif (20%)
“The name [Qwerry] captured my attention first because I am a believer in research and asking questions before making decisions, and what they offer aligns with my core values for marketing and branding.”
— RESEARCH PARTICIPANT
Note: We would be remised not to reference and credit Eli Altman and his DIY book on naming, called Don’t Call It That. It’s an excellent resource in naming and one of our favorites. If you are interested in learning more about DIY naming, check out his book here.
