A Cultural Approach To Brand Names

A brand name is the sign of a product. Brand-naming itself represents a strategically important issue and may determine the success or failure of a product. A good brand name can also save millions of dollars over the product's life because it carries its own meaning, describes the product's advantages, and differentiates the product significantly from its competitors. Thus, the investigation of brand names will benefit formulating better branding strategies and enhancing the success of the products in the market. With the globalization of world economy, especially with China's entry into the World Trade Organization, more and more people in China have realized the importance of good brand names and international brand names in promoting sales and cultivating markets. It is therefore not only necessary but also urgent to study on brand names. Although much has been done in the research of brands, little has been done in the relationship between brand names and the nature of culture. What is more, few researchers deal with Chinese brand names, not to mention comparing between Chinese brand names and English brand names. Even though there do exist some articles on this topic, it still seem to be far from enough. This paper attempts to explore this topic from the perspective of culture, namely what interrelationship lies between culture and brand names, how culture impacts on brand names and what specifically these impacts are. Brand name is a category of marketing communication. Brand naming consists of three components: the market component, the legal component and the linguistic component. Each component makes its own specific requirements in creating a new brand. The market component requires a brand to be suggestive of productive benefits. The legal component demands the legal availability and the uniqueness of the brand. The linguistic component includes three parts: phonetically, a brand should be easy to pronounce and pleasant to be heard; morphologically, it should be short and simple; and semantically a brand should present a positive connotation. According to Newmark's conclusion on the functions of language, we categorize the functions that brand names perform into evocative function, informative function and aesthetic function. And among them, evocative function is of first importance. To create a good brand name, there are certain principles to be adhered to, such as brevity, novelty, readability, extensionality and protectivity.From the perspective of intercultural communication, culture must be seriously considered in branding. The basic logic is that there is overlap between culture and brand names. We deal with this from the major characteristics of culture: Culture satisfies needs; culture is learned; culture embodies language and symbols and culture is dynamic. In particular, because culture is in a flux of evolving, the trend of brand naming fluctuates with the cultural environment. Culture influences the brand name from various layers, such as core values, perceptions and beliefs, registration rules and linguistic component. We argue that core value is the essence in branding because it directly affects the function of brand names. The function of brands is to make the branded products or services recognizable and distinguishable for the promotion of selling in the market. A brand competes better when it conforms to the value preference of the target consumers. Besides, linguistic component cannot be ignored. In the case of English names, various devices are employed on the play of words. While in the case of Chinese brand names, specific Chinese linguistic features impose a direct influence, which makes Chinese brand names more meaningful.When it comes to brand name translation, we think it is possible for transferring brand names. But it should meet some specific prerequisites, communication and relevance. For the immigrant brand name, phonosemantic translation is considered better than pure literal translation or transliteration. Phonosemantic translation deliberates on Chinese...