Naming isn’t Rocket Science, but it’s not as Easy as You Think

The latest adventure in crowdsourcing comes from The National Radio Astronomy Observatory, who are giving the public at large the opportunity to come up with a new name for the newly revamped Very Large Array (VLA).veroxybd.com

What, the person who came up with Very Large Array wasn’t available?

Crowdsourcing is a hot-button topic for people in the branding profession, many of whom see it as devaluing their work; some of whom see it as a surefire way to guarantee a poor result.

We understand the seductive appeal to organizations of generating more logo or name options more cheaply than by hiring professionals, but before you rush out to launch a naming or design contest (either external or employee-only), we urge you to consider the following:

As we’ve written ad nauseam on this blog, creative work is not about coming up with something that people ‘like’. Kraft was sure people liked iSnack 2.0, after all. That is, before they found out that people actually didn’t.

Rather, creative work is about coming up with something that communicates a proposition or emotion effectively. If it does, and if the product or service it’s communicating about is worthwhile, then people will learn not only to like, but to love the name in short order. If you don’t believe us, just ask the folks who came up with Wii and iPad.