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WORDCRAFT
Book Author- Alex Frankel
Book Review by -S S George
Dean, ICMR Case Studies and Management Resources
Abstract
In Wordcraft, Alex Frankel
describes the “art of turning little words into big business.” The book details
the process through which professional naming firms develop company and brand
names, and the stories behind the birth of some well known brand names such as
Accenture, BlackBerry, and Viagra.
Review
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Wordcraft is a book about the art of naming – or as the book’s subtitle says,
the art of turning little words into big business. Today, when millions of
dollars are at stake on the launch of every new product or brand, marketers
must pay attention to even the smallest details about the product and how it
is likely to be perceived by the market. A hundred years ago, brands could
have been, and often were, named after wives or daughters; today naming a
brand or product requires the services of consultants and experts.
Perhaps appropriately, the book contains a list of what must have been the
potential candidates for its title. Coming from a consultant on naming brands,
it is not surprising that the name for the book should have been arrived at
after a deliberate, systematic process – at least, as deliberate and
systematic as the processes he would use to name his clients’ brands. The
options considered ranged from ‘The Word Nerds’ and ‘The Word Hunters’ to
‘Capitalist Graffiti’ and ‘Corporate Poetry’. And this range of possible
titles is indicative of one of the characteristics of the book. It is never
quite clear whether this is a book about the people and companies who name
products and brands, or about the process of naming brands, or even the
significance of the names themselves.
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The book deals in considerable detail with five names – BlackBerry, Accenture,
Viagra, Cayenne, and e-business - that were created specifically for a product
or organization, and are today familiar to most people. Two of these – Viagra
and Accenture – are made-up words. E-business was in usage even before IBM
appropriated it – so to speak – to become a part of its own advertising and
brand image. The book also devotes considerable space to the people who devise
these names.
While brand names are important in all industries, it is particularly important
for pharmaceutical products. Interestingly, it is not just the drug that gets a
name; often pharma companies rename the conditions for which the drug is
prescribed. For example, urinary incontinence became an overactive bladder for
the drug Detrol; female facial hirsutism became unwanted facial hair for the
drug Vaniqa. Changing the name apparently has a tremendous influence on the way
the people perceive the disease and the offered cure.
The name game in pharmaceuticals received a big boost in 1997, when the FDA in
the US changed its rules regarding the advertising and promotion of prescription
drugs to the general public. With patients becoming more aware of the names of
prescription drugs, and even asking doctors to prescribe a specific brand, drugs
began to be sold not just on their curative properties, but also on their brand
image. Consequently, with the kind of importance the author imputes to the name
in creating a winning brand, the name given to the drug became critical - no
doubt bringing great joy to branding and naming consultancies around the world.
Interestingly, a drug has three names. A chemical name, in accordance with rules
and conventions used in naming organic molecules; a generic name, which may be
given by the firm which develops the drug, but will not belong to the firm; and
the brand name, which is the property of the pharma company. As the naming
consultancies have it, the brand names are chosen with great care, after many
hours of focus group interviews with potential users and doctors. The name
Viagra was supposedly developed through a similar process, with the Vi implying
vitality, vigor and virility, and Agra being a word-part meaning ‘catch’ or
‘grasp’.
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2004, ICMR Case Studies and Management Resources. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
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This case study is intended to be used as a basis for class discussion rather
than to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of a management
situation. This case was compiled from published sources.
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