How do you pick up a brand name?

Increasing tourism attractiveness of less known destinations and rural areas in Italy, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine while enhancing the Cultural Routes experience: the CROSSDEV’s project objectives have been clear from day one.

And while the project has been carried out remotely for the most part due to the pandemic, all partners eventually managed to meet in Sicily last October for a full immersion week, having the opportunity to work together, reviewing the past and discussing next steps.

Within the project, Italian partner CoopCulture oversees the creation of the Digital Territorial Platform, an online tool designed to promote the sustainable tourism products developed by the project. The brand-new platform will tell the story behind places like Gibellina or Menfi in Italy, Umm Qais or Aqaba in Jordan, the Jabal Moussa Biosphere Reserve in Lebanon, the Palestinian Heritage Trail in Palestine. It will gather information, photos, travel itineraries, testimonies from the locals and much more, all to allow users to discover the beauties of these (so far) less-know destinations in the Mediterranean.

During the last project meeting in Sicily, all partners gathered for an interesting exercise aimed at selecting the name for that platform. And while we’re still in the process to make up our minds, we interviewed Davide Aldrighetti of Kumbe, the communication agency that helped with the process of creating a short list of possible titles and pay offs for the platform.

HOW DO YOU PICK UP A BRAND NAME? We asked Davide some questions to better understand his work.

Hello Davide, tell us about you, Kumbe and your role in our project.
I’m one of the digital strategists of Kumbe, a digital agency based in Trento (Italy) specialised in e-commerce solutions and digital marketing for destinations and hospitality. We were chosen to support CoopCulture in designing a brand identity for the CROSSDEV project: product name, logo, visual identity.

Let’s talk about naming, what is it?
The first component of a brand identity is always the brand name. You need a distinctive name to identify yourself in a unique way before everyone else. Only after deciding upon the name, you can start working on other brand identity features, such as visual identity or voice. Brand names come from a deep knowledge of the project, competitors…and many brainstorming sessions!

A good brand name should be clear and relevant, evocative, possibly original, long-lasting, consistent, addressed to the market we are speaking to. It should refer to brand personality, its main values and features, its value proposition. Usually, a brand name is followed by a payoff: a short sentence that helps characterizing the brand in a quick and memorable way.

How did Kumbe work so far?
The process started last spring, studying and discussing all project materials and documents provided by the partners. Then, we had several meetings with CoopCulture and CROSSDEV’s lead partner CISP (Comitato Internazionale per lo Sviluppo dei Popoli) to better understand documents and focus on the right elements. At the end of the analysis phase, we drafted a questionnaire to be shared with partners and stakeholders to gather useful information, ideas, points of view, suggestions, visions on each project area. After analysing the collected answers with CoopCulture and CISP, we started our creative process.

An initial set of 40 proposals was presented and discussed, then the choice was restricted to a dozen names, and then discussed again taking into consideration also the point of view of two English and Arabic native-speaker copywriters.

We used the same system to shortlist the payoffs and in the end, we narrowed down the proposals to three names and two payoffs that were submitted to all project’s partners during the last meeting. At that time, they started an internal discussion that will lead, in the next few weeks, to the final choice.

Which were the main difficulties you encountered and what do you think of this project?
I think CROSSDEV project is amazing and very complex. It puts together five less known territories with striking features, a very strong identity, and common Mediterranean roots that are not difficult to identify. Exploring and coping with this complexity remotely has been a real challenge. I think we proposed many different names that could have been a good choice. Personally, I like original and unusual names or fancy ones, but I understand the considerations made by the partners, who seem keener towards a simpler and easier to understand brand name. Honestly, I’m very curious to discover their final choice…and I am looking forward to work on the visual identity soon after!

In the next weeks the Digital Territorial Platform name will be chosen. Follow us to see where this journey will take us!