Naming a food product may seem like an overwhelming task, but it can actually be quite fun - and simple - once you understand a few key principles. The most important thing to consider when naming a food product is who is your audience. Once you have a clear understanding of who your audience is, and what appeals to them, develop a name that is recognizable, and always keep things simple! Keep reading to learn more about the importance of following these 3 key principles when naming a food product. At the end, learn how to get creative once you have a solid foundation for a name!
1. Appeal to your Audience
If you’ve ever heard the term “emotional eating” then you are probably already aware of the connection between emotions and food. This particular term often gets a bad wrap - presenting a connection between emotions and food as a bad thing. However, the human connection between our emotions and foods can be a positive thing. Especially when considering what to name a food product!
Think of all the ways food creates a positive emotional response. When we hear a name of food that reminds us of our childhood, we get nostalgic. When we think about our favorite holiday memories, it’s often connected to our favorite foods. Being aware of the types of emotional connections your audience may have with your food product, provides you with insight as to what types of names may appeal to them.
On the other hand, the connection between food and emotions isn’t always positive. Food products that often elicit a negative emotional response are those that sound too fattening or sugary. However, if named carefully, those indulgent foods can sound quite appealing to your audience!
Use Adjectives to Appeal to Your Audience
Adjectives are a simple and effective way to appeal to specific emotions, and create a name for a food product!
Just a quick refresher on adjectives - adjectives are words that describe a person, place, or thing. So in the case of naming a food product, adjectives describe the food (thing). When using adjectives to name a food, one place to begin is how the food tastes! Some examples of adjectives that appeal to taste are sour, spicy, and smoky. Sometimes two or more adjectives can be combined too, like Flaming Hot Cheetos!
Beyond adjectives that describe taste, there are other adjectives that are quite emotionally charged when it comes to food. Probably the best example of this is the word “Diet.” Think about Diet Coke. Coke, by itself, is often seen as something too sugary to drink on a regular basis. Add the word “Diet” in front of it though, and it becomes a daily go to for caffeine and soda lovers of all ages.
Simply Lemonade is another example of using an adjective to change the appeal of a beverage. While lemonade may be naturally seen as healthier than soda, it is still often considered a more sugary (and therefore a less desirable) beverage. However, when you add the word “Simply” it implies that this lemonade is more natural, or simple, than other lemonades; therefore, a healthier choice.
Diet Coke and Simply Lemonade are excellent examples of how choosing an adjective can create an effective product name that appeals to the ideal audience’s emotions.
2. Be Recognizable!
One of the most powerful emotions you can tap into is a person’s sense of trust. When naming a food product, brand recognition helps to establish this trust. That’s why many well known food companies use their brand name as part of the food product name.
Let’s use Coke as an example again. Before Diet Coke, people already loved the original Coke! They knew it was delicious, they just felt guilty about drinking it regularly because of all the sugar. When Coke decided to create a new product, they maintained the name that people already trusted and simply added the word “diet” to it. People knew they were still getting the same coke taste, but without the calories.
Candy companies are also great at maintaining brand recognition between their products. Hershey’s Kisses, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups AND Reese’s Pieces are great examples of this!
If you are new to creating a food product, you may not have the brand recognition (yet!) that older food companies already have. That’s okay! Begin by creating one great recognizable food product and your reputation will grow! While you are building brand recognition though, you want to make sure you focus on food recognition.
Some people are very adventurous eaters - they will try anything once! The average person though, and most likely the majority of your audience, want foods that are familiar. This means, they don’t want to eat something that they don’t recognize! Keep this in mind when deciding on a name for your product. Choose something that describes what type of food it is. The more clear you are with this, the more likely your audience will be willing to try it. This also helps to further establish trust with your audience!
Skinny POP! did a great job of combining food recognition with an appealing adjective for their food product name. Most people have positive connections to popcorn (hello, movies!), so they stuck with a familiar term they knew would appeal to their audience.
3. Keep it Simple!
If you are creating a name for a food product, you are probably a pretty creative person! Which means, you may feel like getting really creative with the naming process. Look back at all the examples above though. Notice that while all of them are unique to their own brand, all of them are also - simple. When naming a food product, keep it simple!
Simplicity helps with both food and brand recognition. Keeping it simple also reminds you to focus on the most important descriptive elements - which are often literal descriptions of the food. Reese’s Pieces are literally pieces of a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Fruit Roll-ups are literally “fruit” that can be rolled-up. Fruit by the foot, 12 inches of “fruit” to roll-up.
Keeping it simple also allows for you to choose words that are most appealing in their description. Fruit roll-ups are more sugar than fruit; however, the simple use of the word fruit describes that it is fruit flavored, while appealing to parent’s desire for a healthy snack for their kids. In addition, saying it “rolls-up” is a simple description that is fun for kids to imagine what they can do with their food! Simple, logical, fun - effective!
If you want to explore this idea of simplicity, go for a walk down the snack aisle at the grocery store. Brands who create snacks for kids have naming food products down to a science! Descriptive, fun, and dare we say, simple enough to remember to tell mom and dad to buy?
After you apply the 3 Key principles - Get Creative!
Once you have considered the 3 key principles: appealing to your audience, being recognizable, and starting simple - then you can get creative!
While you can stop at those three key principles and have a great food product name, you can also choose to add some creativity! The creative spin is often what makes a name fun, and because fun is an emotion most people are drawn towards, this is a great way to get people to try new products!
An easy & effective way to be creative when naming your product is to use creative spellings of familiar words. Using a creative spelling is simple and helps maintain food recognition. Creating a new spelling is also a great way to distinguish your food product from another similar one.
Cheez-it crackers nailed this marketing strategy! First, they created a product that appeals to a large group of people - hello, who doesn’t love cheese!? Then, they selected a name that was simple and maintained food recognition. Finally, they changed the spelling of cheese to make it stand out as its own unique product.
Creativity can go beyond changing spelling. If it does though, it should still come back to the core principles of appealing to the audience, brand/food recognition, and simplicity.
Ben & Jerry’s Ice cream is a great example of this! Their ice creams appeal to an audience of ice cream lovers from all walks of life, because they have tapped into these three principles, BEFORE they got too creative!
In 1978, their first flavor was… Vanilla! Before they had any brand recognition, they started with a familiar flavor to an entire audience of ice cream eaters around the world! They started with a flavor people recognized, and added “Ben & Jerry’s” before “Vanilla” to help build brand recognition. As for simple, it doesn’t get more simple than vanilla. Once they began to build more brand recognition, and their audience was familiar with their ice cream, they were able to get more creative. One of their more creative product names may not describe the ice cream itself, but “Netflix & Chill’d” definitely appeals to a younger audience’s emotions!
Whether you are naming your first food product or your hundredth food product, always start with the key principles above: a name that appeals to your audience, creates brand and food recognition, and is simple! Once you have a solid foundation of these three principles, then explore creative ways to help distinguish your product from others!
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