Helpful words

Dollar Store Names: The Deals, The Steals, The Thrills

Dollar stores live in the world of practical magic. A place where $5 feels like $50, and a name can be the thing that turns “eh, maybe” into “why not?” The best dollar store names don’t just tell you what you’re getting; they evoke an emotional response, spark curiosity, or cleverly allude to their mainstream…

The powers (and limitations) of names in defining a category

  • About: Naming

One of the best parts of this job is the newness of it all. Naming is one of the first milestones of a newborn idea. That means we get unique insight into some groundbreaking developments, from AI systems to krill-derived protein supplements. Most of the time we’re trying to help founders stand out in a…

We play well with others

We’re lucky to have some talented friends and partners in the branding world—design studios, strategists, consultants, freelance designers—who think of us when their clients have naming needs. Typically, this means working together to figure out how to seamlessly incorporate naming into the rest of their branding work. This is our jam. Working with a longtime…

Same, But Different

I sold records before I sold names. In my 20s, I worked at record stores dotted around the country: Amoeba in Hollywood, Cheapo in Austin, Everyday Music in Seattle. The job mostly consisted of being brooding and standoffish with an occasional request for actual customer service. A lot of the time that interaction would be…

brand-equity-header

Brand equity: a river in reverse

Understanding the flow of brand equity within an ecosystem We have a saying at A Hundred Monkeys that “brand equity flows upstream.” It’s something we remind ourselves whenever we work on naming ecosystem projects. Essentially it means that any sub-brand or branded element (feature, service, tool, etc.) that doesn’t get a name sends the brand…

Is “Lifestyle” A Four Letter Word?

As the saying goes, there are two types of people in the world: those who think lifestyle is a four-letter word and those who don’t. I find myself squarely in the second camp but have never really asked myself why? Perhaps it’s because when I first heard the term lifestyle in the early 2000s, brands…

The hardest questions in branding

And how to tell if you have the right answers Most branding projects start with questions. Sure, it’s called Discovery or Intake or On-boarding, but it’s just asking questions. Some of these questions are about understanding how a company operates and what their offerings are. Then there are a bunch of questions about the brand — values,…

WTF is gravitas?

The nature of naming work is subjective. Names are liked or disliked for all kinds of reasons, some gut feel, some logical, some not so much. As such, we’ve engineered parts of our process to remove some subjectivity, because when we’re being more objective we can agree on success or failure.  One request has come…

AI sucks at naming. There, I said it.

Tools define eras. The cotton gin, nitrogen fertilizer, the internal combustion engine, the internet—all changed the lives of millions of people. New tools bring great capabilities and promise. They also introduce new risks and problems. Tools aren’t inherently good or bad–that comes down to who’s using them and how. Nuclear energy comes to mind. France…

A namer’s travels: The Louisiana wordsmiths

My current home base is Houston, which means New Orleans is a straight shot down I-10 and an easy long weekend. For anyone who loves language, etymologies, and wrestling with new words, a drive through Louisiana is a visual feast. It’s something like a history lesson and an international excursion combined, with more Arby’s. I’ve…

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