For those of you who, like us, work in the branding and marketing industry, the importance of a good brand name comes to be pretty clear as the name is one of the most important assets of a brand. For any company or product positioned in the Chinese market, finding a Chinese name is the first step of a successful branding campaign. It is indeed a crucial tool in acknowledging, engaging and interacting with Chinese consumers.

Companies starting up in China as well as marketing manager involved in launching new products, all need to consider the initial important question of phonetic versus semantic naming. A little explanation might be in order here: phonetic naming is the translation of an original brand name into another language to convey its proper pronunciation, often without any regard for the meanings of the characters used. An example of this is Motorola: 摩托罗拉 — mó tuō luō lā. Semantic naming, instead, can be achieved in two ways. One is to translate the name and/or its components directly into its Chinese counterpart; the other is to find Chinese characters which express the metaphorical meanings associated with the name. The hassle here is that it is difficult to determine which naming solution, phonetic or semantic, is the better option and sometimes the best result can be achieved only by combining the two methods.

Having said that, you still need to consider that there are other elements to consider including: tonal progression, artistic conception, visual identity, grammatical structure and provocation. And in addition, there is a whole other set of important steps in creating and, more importantly, selecting a suitable Chinese name: brainstorming, linguistic check, legal check, and consumer testing. Said that, even having selected a great Chinese name, your brand can still be at high risk if you do not give it proper protection.

If your Chinese name is not protected, a competitor can take it, along with all the equity attached – and the cost of getting it back is high. This was a lesson Toyota learned the hard way. Several years ago, Toyota wanted to launch their Camry model in the Chinese market, believing that the new product had the right attributes and positioning to do well. As part of the branding strategy, the name 佳[jiā]美[měi] was chosen, expressing the elegance and comfort of the model’s design. Subsequently, marketing and public relations activities were launched even before the name was registered.

Just as the public was beginning to recognize and accept the product, Toyota was informed that the Chinese name had already been registered by another company. Finally, they had no choice but to change the name to 凯[kai]美[měi]瑞[ruì]. Unfortunately, all the investment in and potential returns of the initial marketing campaign had been lost.

This is just a little example of how important trademark name registration can be, since it is the only effective tool to offer protection to the brand name nation-wide. In addition, you should consider that companies can also benefit by including the trademark name in the corporate name so to avoid confusion and dilution of brand image.

However, all these benefits can be achieved only through a quite lengthy and complicated process which, in our opinion, should run parallel to the selection of the brand name. In fact, trademark registration can be divided into 45 different classes belonging to similar categories. To make sure a trademark is fully protected, it is advisable to make the registrations in several related classes. Each class is divided by industry and from the perspective of naming and trademark registration, each industry has its own preferred characters. This means that certain Chinese characters are frequently used in specific fields. The following graph shows an example of this kind of trend. The preferences are indicative of particular features in the industry and the increase in risk for registering names containing certain characters.

Sample Trademark Search Result

Character	亮[liàng]
Meaning	Clean, bright
Class	3	11	17
Searching results*	26	19	5
Frequency for use	High	Middle	Low
Example(s)	新[xīn]亮[liàng]	易[yì]亮[liàng]	金[jīn]亮[liàng]

*Search results on all the trademarks which use the character亮comes from the National Trademark Bureau database.

Source: Labbrand China Consulting, Ltd.

In conclusion, for companies starting up into the market or selecting the name for a new product, choosing and protecting the right Chinese brand name is of vital importance. The benefits of a suitable name are in avoiding future problems and in reinforcing other brand communication efforts. And finding the right partner to help you in the process of naming and trademark registration is even more important to guarantee that your name will enjoy greater protection and your brand greater success.

To get more information about creative naming services, you can surf Labbrand website at:

www.labbrand.com

Vladimir Djurovic