Semantic Studies (name, claims, etc.)
You have a project to select a brand or product name, or even a project to select your corporate name?
Ensure that your content is truly adapted to your target audience and markets!
Thanks to our team of specialised correspondents from all over the world, Beauty Words enables you to verify the pertinence of the name you’ve chosen before using it in international markets.
Selecting your product’s name is a crucial step. Intimately linked to your brand image, internally as externally, it can have unexpected commercial repercussions.
Did you know?
Estimates conclude that one word in two, lacking context, is ambiguous in Indo-European languages*.
Beware of slogans or brand names with specific connotations
Not only should a name be easy to pronounce, but it must also be pertinent to the target market. You must therefore verify that the name isn’t pejorative, insulting, or ridiculous within the target international markets.
And yet, within the automobile industry – though not unique to the industry – this is often overlooked… The internet is rife with examples of car names that just don’t make the cut in other cultures, from the innocent though self-deprecating Nova, to the more explicit Pinto or Toyota MR2. A French consumer may think twice about climbing behind the wheel of a MiTo (homonymous for “a liar” in this Romance language), even if the Alpha Romeo checks all their boxes when it comes to style!
Does your future product name bear certain connotations in some of your target markets?
Beware of false equivalencies in translation
Names as well as marketing claims or slogans may also miss their mark due to inadequate/unlocalised translations.
For example, names created in English by non native-speakers, who deem their own mastery of the language to be on par with a native, might in fact convey a different meaning entirely to what they had hoped in the target population, or may not be appropriate to the context of the product. So, “voluptuous eye-cream” may seem idiomatic or pleasant to the French ear. However, for an anglo-saxon, a term like “luscious” or “sumptuous” may seem more apt for a cosmetic cream.
How do you verify the pertinence of a name or slogan?
In order to verify the pertinence of a name, Beauty Words will carry out a multilingual semantic study, an effective solution that is more competitive than a simple naming service provided by a marketing or branding agency.
What is a multilingual semantic study?
Stage 1: contextual analysis
We will analyse your target audience and markets, with you, in order to define the concerned languages and understand their cultural specificities. We will analyse your challenges, questions, and worries between one name or another in order to delimit the field of study.
Stage 2: international research
From her, and in the utmost confidentiality, we will interrogate our contacts within our international network – translators, copywriters, consumers and correspondents all across the world.
Stage 3: analysis and summary report
We will analyse the responses we obtain and write up a summary report in order to the determine the semantic content of the studied names, that is to say, “the entirety of the semantic value that a word or expression represents” **. More concisely, our report will present, in addition to the necessary information on the pronunciation of the word or words subjected to the enquiry:
- The meaning of the words in each targeted language
- The relationship between the signifier and the signified, the true and hidden meanings
- Any related connotations, whether positive or negative, obvious or ambiguous, objective or subjective, contextualised or not
Beauty Words stands with brands and partner PR and marketing agencies in order to ensure the proper meaning and reach of your names and slogans on the international stage, an indispensable key to your commercial success.
* M. Lothaire, Applied Combinatorics On Words, Vol. 105, Cambridge, CUP 2005
** Definition according to the CNRTL