brand-strategy-and-naming

Brand Strategy & Naming

The first and most expensive brand decision: what the brand means and what it's called. Everything downstream — the logo, the palette, the type, the brand book — is directed against this. Author it deliberately, because a fuzzy position generates slop no matter how good the model is.

Strategy is authored, naming is curated. Neither is auto-generated as a final answer. AI explores; the human decides. Any naming-availability or trademark-collision judgment is routed to ravenclaude-core:security-reviewer (and counsel) — this skill states facts, not legal conclusions. Prices [unverified].

Workflow

1. Discovery (before anything). Answer the questionnaire below with the client. Do not skip to a name.
2. Author the strategy brief. Fill ../../templates/brand-strategy-brief.md: positioning statement, value proposition, target audience, competitive frame, and archetype (with the rejected alternatives named). This file is the strategy-before-visuals gate artifact — no visual concept is generated until it exists.
3. Bulk-draft names + taglines. Generate a longlist (20–40), screen against the shortlist rubric, hand a shortlist to a human. Never present one auto-picked name.
4. Flag legal. For every shortlisted name, flag any obvious trademark collision and recommend a formal USPTO clearance search before promising availability — route to security-reviewer.
5. Hand off. The strategy + voice go to identity-systems-designer to direct the visual system against.

Discovery questionnaire

#	Question	Why it matters
1	What does the business actually do, in one sentence a stranger understands?	Kills jargon; forces clarity
2	What is the real alternative the customer is choosing you over (incl. "do nothing")?	Positioning is against the alternative, not a category
3	Who is the target customer — specifically (not "everyone")?	Audience precision drives voice + visual register
4	What emotional job does the brand do (status, safety, belonging, rebellion)?	Picks the archetype
5	Three brands you admire and why — and three you never want to resemble	Constraint donors: "like Stripe but warmer, avoid blue"
6	What must NEVER be true of this brand?	Negative constraints escape the legible middle
7	Where does the brand live (site, packaging, app, retail)?	Fixes which identity assets are in scope

Positioning statement (the shape)

For [target audience] who [need/context], [brand] is the [category/frame] that [key benefit / point of difference] — unlike [the real alternative] — because [reason to believe].

Write it, then pressure-test: could a competitor claim the same sentence? If yes, it's not a position.

Archetype selection (priors)

The 12 brand archetypes (Hero, Sage, Explorer, Creator, Ruler, Magician, Innocent, Everyman, Jester, Lover, Caregiver, Outlaw) are a starting lens, not a horoscope. Pick one primary + at most one secondary; name why the tempting alternatives were rejected. The archetype constrains voice and visual register — it is a design input, not a personality quiz. Traverse the tier-selection tree in ../../knowledge/brand-decision-trees.md if the engagement scope is still open.

Naming — shortlist rubric

Screen each candidate on:

• Distinctiveness — memorable, not a descriptive commodity term (descriptive marks are weak trademarks).
• Meaning-fit — supports the position/archetype; no unfortunate second meanings (check other languages).
• Availability plausibility — .com/handle plausibly obtainable; obvious TM collision flagged to security-reviewer (a real clearance search is counsel's job, not this skill's).
• Sayability — spellable on hearing it, pronounceable, works as a verb/handle.
• Longevity — doesn't box the company into today's single product.

Present the shortlist with the rubric scores + the trade-offs, and let a human choose. Naming types: coined (Kodak), real-word (Apple), compound (Facebook), descriptive (weak TM), evocative (Nike). Note the type per candidate.

Anti-patterns

• Jumping to names/logos before the positioning is authored (the slop factory).
• Presenting one name as "the answer" instead of a curated shortlist.
• Promising a name is "available" without a counsel clearance search.
• A positioning statement a competitor could sign — that's a category description, not a position.
• Picking an archetype and never saying why the others were rejected.

See also

• Template: ../../templates/brand-strategy-brief.md
• Skill: ../brand-voice-and-messaging/SKILL.md
• Best-practice: ../../best-practices/strategy-before-visuals-or-it-reads-as-slop.md
• Knowledge: ../../knowledge/brand-identity-anatomy-2026.md