A typical assignment takes around a week, delivers at least 300 names and costs about $3750, as follows:

Your creative brief becomes my treasure map, describing what were looking for while delineating the boundaries and explicating the dominant variables of the assignment.  This crucially important confirming document should also account for the heritage of the company and the direction of the industry, analyze previous and existing names and taglines for the competitor-set (including conceptual competitors), and prioritize the criteria for evaluating new name candidates (including knock-out factors and other linguistic restrictions).

Next a cyber survey of the marketplace to see which Brand Archetypes are over-represented (and which are under-represented), which Position Dimensions are occupied (and which are vacant), who owns what images and metaphors, who's using what kind of language and who is branding around what shapes and colors.   I allow 4 or 5 hours to fully digest the opportunity (including our phone and email conversations) before starting to formulate creative strategies for pursuit.  Then I go off and do something else, while the assignment ferments and percolates in my head.

When my mind is literally brimming with ideas I sit down for the first of two creative sessions, filling the margins of your documents with a copious array of name candidates.  I start by building around theme words which execute on your creative brief, I look to other languages for roots and morphemes to borrow and I ideate profusely.  I'll make connections with the brand promise through literature and music, with similes and metaphors, through science and nature, with analogy and logic, via constructive linguistics and rhyme, through philosophy and religion, with humor and sarcasm, through intuition and synesthesia, along with all the other voodoo that I do.  I'm shooting for 150 names in this session, and I'm usually good for about a name per minute once I get traction in the open field.

The next day I begin by typing my notes, exploiting the subtle difference between how the ideas look in my longhand and how they appear on the monitor to evoke new responses which hit the target from a variety of new and different angles.  I'll review the input to make sure I haven't overlooked anything, and I'll heavy-up on some favorite directions I think can tolerate the extra attention.  (I'm like a big dog that gets into your back yard and digs for 10 or 15 minutes in each of 30 or 40 different holes; if there's a bone, I'll find it.) 

Finally, I present the ideas in the order conceived, to facilitate your brainstorming along with me.

Now you and your team spend 48-to-72 hours living with the list, tick marking your favorites, ignoring the duds, first review it front-to-back, then back-to-front (so fatigue sets in at a different place); read at the list in the dentist chair, on the train, first thing in the morning before coffee, after a workout or a cocktail, right before bed; then email me your shortlist for legal prescreen against the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) database.  I'll research the status of the top 25 favorites and create a document to support a list review session and final consultation to craft rationale for the top 5 finalists (but often times even my leftover verbal confections get repurposed in mission and vision statements, value propositions, category descriptors, tradeshow themes, public relations initiatives, advertising campaigns, websites and newsletters).

I can usually get to your assignment within a few days of your initiating phone call, and you can generally have that first list a week later (actual mileage my vary). 

To facilitate name and tagline deliverables, I offer an on-site Verbal Branding Workshop, designed to answer the age-old question: Where do good names come from?  Like a Forest Ranger, I lead a fun-filled foray into the wild world of words, as we plumb the depths of the dictionary in our quest for free-range language (and the true source of verbal leverage!) 

Trading my campaign hat for a pith helmet, we'll explore everything from corporate identities and nomenclature architectures to sales slogans and marketing mottoes.  You'll learn the difference between Master Brands and Driver Brands, Extended Brands and Ingredient Brands, Co-Brands and No-Brands.  I use over 100 props in all, but it's the can of SPAM that holds everyone's attention as we highlight the basics of Trademark protection and Intellectual Property law.  Our Semantic Safari concludes with a rousing reprise of the 5 phases in every company's lifecycle when verbal branding becomes a priority. 

Where do good names come from?  From good namers, of course! 

Now you know, and now you know one.  So call 650-595-2856 or email stevececil@comcast.net for the best appellations this side of, well, the Appalachians.