When you open a fashion magazine, you will see a sea of beauty products. With full-page images, the product names almost look mesmerizing. But after a few pages, you will find them so similar that they are suddenly unmemorable. In today’s highly competitive landscape where new beauty products are launched every single day, how can brands create unique, appealing and memorable names? This article will explore the secrets to product naming in the beauty industry from 4 key dimensions.

Beautiful Mistakes

In the pursuit of creating the most beautiful and appealing product names, cosmetic brands tend to make one of the 3 mistakes:

1. Listing all kinds of benefits and keywords (moisturizing, whitening, brightening, etc) in the name despite the consumer can hardly read or memorize it;
2. Elaborating with poetic words in order to describe the product’s rich texture and convey a premium feel, however overlooking the key of branding – differentiation;
3. Naming without valuing trademark protection, which leads to vile competition in a market where countless names can be found that are no different from one another.

For a long time, trademark protection has been neglected by many. Since beauty product names are often very long and descriptive, they generally have a lower success rate in trademark registration. As a result, few cosmetic brands pay attention to trademark protection. This negligence then brought about the major risk of competing within a homogeneous market where copycats are prevalent. By creating highly differentiating names, brands can greatly increase the success rate of trademark registration, but more importantly, form a healthier market environment. 

Estee Lauder RE-NUTRIV’s highly descriptive Chinese name, directly translated as ‘luxurious adoration day & night premium adoration serum’

4 Creative Naming Secrets – Creating Differentiating Product Names for Cosmetic Brands

Naming Secrets 1. Borrowing Visual Codes

In the time of information overload, consumers’ attention is one of the most depleted resources. Therefore, some cosmetic brands started to adopt shorter and more distinctive names to catch their attention. Neuroscience indicates that the reptilian complex of the human brain (the part that controls instinctual desires) prefers information that is visual. Aligning the product names with visual signs is thus a smart approach. We can find endless examples in the market, such as Lancôme’s ‘little black bottle’, Estee Lauder’s ‘little brown bottle’ and HR’s ‘precious green bottle’, or HR’s ‘leopard’ mascara and Lancôme’s ‘swan neck’ mascara… leaving strong impressions on the consumers.

Naming Secrets 2. Personification

The use of personification instils a product with life and personality. The lively image makes it unforgettable for the consumers.

The strength of this approach is that it paints a highly vivid image. Reading the names, one can visualize the products as animated characters. Be it dramatic descriptions of the target audience, or playful analogies of the product benefits – the product names are so easy to comprehend that it shortens consumers’ decision-making process. It accelerates not only brand communication but also the discussion between consumers. 

Naming Secrets 3. Relating to Life

In recent years, more and more cosmetic brands start to descend from their ‘pedestal’ and interact with the increasingly sophisticated Chinese consumers, hoping to build an emotional connection. This trend is directly reflected in their innovative product naming:

1) Colloquial Phrases – Convey Product Benefits in Layman’s Term

• NARS ‘Don’t Care’ Eyeshadow Primer: The Name highlights the accessibility of the product and a confident, carefree personality.
• Benefit ‘That Girl’ Cream: This name reads plain and simple, yet a refreshing expression, reminding the users of chitchats between girlfriends that are genuine and carefree.
• Lush ‘Forget Him’ Body Wash: This name paints a vivid image of a decisive and strong female.

Moreover, these names are often highly adaptive for communications. For instance, ‘Hey, wash it out! Forget him!’, or ‘Look at that girl! She’s glowing!’

2) Symbolism – Essentialize Product Benefits into a Daily Object

• Shu Uemura ‘The Lightbulb Fluid Foundation’: The name describes the brightening benefit as a common object – the lightbulb – to evoke curiosity and underline the benefit in consumers’ minds.
• Clarins ‘Skin Power Bank’: As the name implies, this product can energize the skin and diminish signs of fatigue, to restore a fresh glow. The campaign slogan states ‘Beauty Full Power, Be My Comfortable Self’, meaning that if one wants to be fully ‘charged’, this handy product is the answer.

Naming Secrets 4. Declaring Personality

According to a recent report by Accenture, China’s urban consumers are gradually shifting towards a pursuit for differentiation – a more diversified and self-centric market. In order to meet their needs for self-expression, as well as encourage spontaneous content creation by the consumers, a few cosmetic brands took the route of declaring unique personalities to appeal to different niche groups. Examples include Dior’s ‘Poison Girl’, the racey product naming by NARS, etc.

Dior ‘Poison Girl’

Smart Leverage of Descriptors

Despite being highly expressive, the more concise and differentiating the name gets, the more it is prone to over-essentialization. This makes it difficult for consumers to extract information about benefits or ingredients directly from the product name.

A research project by Labbrand indicated that when Chinese consumers shop for beauty products, they are more used to seeing concrete descriptions of product benefits to inform their purchase decision. Take Dior Prestige as example, different from the English name, the Chinese name ‘迪奥花蜜活颜丝悦’ (Dior/ Flower Honey/ Rejuvenating/ Face/ Silk/ Pleasure) contains extensive information including product ingredients, functions and emotional benefits. Similarly, we can also find complementary descriptors such as ‘serum/ essence/ concentrate’ or ‘dewy foundation’ after the ‘little black bottles’ and ‘lightbulbs’.

Dior Prestige 迪奥花蜜活颜丝悦

What’s Next

As the first and foremost touch-point of a brand, product and brand names shoulder the responsibility of communicating brand image and carrying brand equity. For cosmetic brands especially, the female consumers as their core target are generally more sensitive and pro-brand – they are more likely to pay for the added value of impactful branding.

A unique and appealing name will undoubtedly enhance brand communication. However, brands must take into account the brand positioning and product specifics as well as the cultural context of the consumer market in order to determine which naming approach is the best fit. Through our expert knowledge, cultural insights and in-depth experience, Labbrand looks forward to assisting each brand to create its unique identity, as well as exploring the potential of naming.

TEAM

Labbrand Naming Team,

Labbrand, Shanghai