Identify–Invent–Implement Naming Process
The three-phase discipline Lexicon uses to engineer names, not just brainstorm them.
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 95%
David Placek's agency runs every naming project through three phases: Identify (understand behavior and map the competitive landscape into a creative framework), Invent (generate thousands of directions via small teams plus a linguistic engine, then screen for trademark and linguistics), and Implement (arm the client to sell the name internally with rationale, prototypes, and customer research). It reframes naming as inventing a future experience rather than describing a present product.
Origin
Developed over four decades and ~4,000 projects by David Placek at Lexicon Branding, the firm that created Pentium, BlackBerry, Swiffer, Azure, Vercel, Windsurf and more.
Core principles
- 01A name isn't a word, it's an experience you're creating for the future
- 02Start conversations with behavior (how you behave now and want to behave) not positioning, values, or mission
- 03Distinctiveness beats description; imitation is 'a form of suicide'
- 04A creative framework is a window to travel through, not a narrow list of objectives
- 05The right name delivers cumulative advantage and asymmetric advantage
How to run it
- 1
Identify: map behavior and landscape
Interview the client about how they behave now and want to behave in the future (behavior is bidirectional — how the market behaves toward you and you toward it). Then map the competitive 'landscape' — the existing brand names AND the language everyone uses in the space — so you know what to avoid. Distill this into a 'creative framework.'
Pro tip Frame the brief as experience and behavior, not objectives — avoid the word 'objectives' because it makes teams too logical and narrows the output.
Watch out Old-thinking prompts (tell me about your positioning/values/mission) produce descriptive, forgettable names in today's crowded digital market.
- 2
Invent: generate wide, then screen
Use small two-person teams plus a linguistic/sound-symbolism engine and morpheme databases to generate two-to-three thousand ideas and directions over three to four weeks. Then sift, run trademark/legal clearance and linguistic screens to narrow to a showable set. Present in two cycles because humans learn by comparing.
Pro tip Present names in two rounds — clients discover their real criteria by comparing, the same way house-hunters learn they need a view but not a pool.
Watch out Most of the 3,000 are ideas and directions, not ship-ready names; treat them as raw diamonds to be fractured and examined, not finished solutions.
- 3
Implement: arm the champion to sell it
Help the client team present the bold name up the chain: write a longer rationale, build prototypes (name on a cap, a T-shirt, a mock Wall Street Journal ad showing a stock lift), and run customer research that measures whether the name fires imagination — not whether it's 'comfortable' or 'fits the concept.'
Pro tip Prototypes and mockups let executives see the lift a name can create in the context of the marketplace, shifting the decision away from the boss's personal taste.
Watch out If research asks customers whether a name 'fits the concept,' you will inevitably always end up choosing a descriptive name.
In the wild
Microsoft came in stuck, wanting a name starting or ending with 'cloud' for its cloud service. Lexicon argued that would drop them into 'an ocean of other cloud this cloud that,' and instead presented Azure — another word for blue (a link to blue sky and clouds) chosen for its linguistic balance: a noisy Z, an opening A, and a smooth flow. A client initially called it 'just a dumb idea.'
→ Microsoft warmed up and adopted it; Azure became a roughly hundred-billion-dollar brand.
For Guillermo Rauch's company, Lexicon built Vercel from familiar, easy-to-process parts — 'ver' (truth/green, as in verde) plus 'cel' (accelerate) — an invented word that still leans on processing fluency so the lazy brain accepts it easily.
→ Rauch described watching the team 'distill it down to a science'; Vercel became a strong, opinionated brand fitting the vibrant 'V' sound.
Common mistakes
Reaching for a descriptive name for comfort
Clients default to descriptors like 'cloud-pro' because past success feels safe, but a descriptive name in a crowded field cannot generate distinctiveness or asymmetric advantage — you blend into ten other cloud services.
Treating the raw idea list as finished names
The 2,000–3,000 outputs are directions and concepts, most unworkable or unclearable; assuming they're ship-ready skips the essential trademark and linguistic screening that separates a real solution from a fragment.
Is it for you?
Best for
Founders, PMs, and marketing leaders naming a company or product who can invest weeks and want a defensible, distinctive name rather than a descriptor.
Not ideal for
Cases that genuinely need a descriptor or internal label rather than a trademarkable brand, or when there is no time/budget for multi-cycle generation and screening.
From the transcript
“first, we have to identify then we invent and then we (19:00) implement”
“we don't use large brainstorming sessions”
“we might have two or three thousand ideas. I say ideas because they're not all solutions”
“this we're creating an experience for you”
“If a brand name isn't distinctive you lose right then you're imitating and that's a form of suicide”
From the episode
Naming expert shares the process behind creating billion-dollar brand names like Azure, Vercel, Windsurf, Sonos, Blackberry, and Impossible Burger
David Placek (Lexicon Branding)