Naming Lucid (and Beyond) with Lexicon Branding

We're back at it again with David Placek, founder of Lexicon Branding. This time we dive into the idea of sustainability in when it comes to brand naming, specifically focusing on Lexicon's role in naming Lucid, a luxury EV car, as well as Mainspring, Subaru Outback, and beyond!

You don't want to miss this episode as we get into the weeds of creating value through brand names, the approach behind brand naming, and David's excellent advice for founders in the process of choosing their company's name.

Click here to learn more about Lexicon Branding.

00:00 - Introduction

02:38 - Discussing 41 years of Lexicon Branding

04:20 - Are there differences in the approach to brand naming in the sustainability industries?

06:40 - Discussing the naming of Lucid, a luxury EV car

13:15 - Unpacking Subaru brand loyalty + naming the Outback

17:50 - Creating value when naming sustainable brands

23:10 - What sustainability trends are you seeing that you're most excited to name?

25:10 - How to structure "synthetic" words/names to feel more natural

26:55 - Advice to consider when choosing your company's name

Full Transcript:

[Bill Kenney]

Hey everybody, this is Bill Kenney, CEO and co-founder of Focus Lab and Odi, two global B2B brand agencies. I'm back with another episode of In Conversation. As a reminder, these episodes are just how they're named. It's a conversation with somebody in or around branding. Today, back for his second interview, it's my pal

David Placek. And the crowd cheers! David is a superhuman. Uh, he has built Lexicon for 41 years, premier naming agency in the world. Naming companies like. BlackBerry, Swiffer, Febreze, Lucid. We talk about Lucid today. Uh, Subaru Outback, the list is unbelievable, quite honestly.

So in today's episode, we sit down and we talk about sustainability based names, most notably Lucid, another company called Mainspring and a few others kind of get sprinkled in there, so a really fun conversation, a really interesting conversation. We actually get into the weeds of what it was like to deliver names to these companies, how those companies felt about certain names, the approach that he took in naming a few of these companies all that and more in another wonderful episode of In Conversation. I hope you enjoy.

[Bill Kenney]

All right, David, we're back at it again. Uh, we've, we've recorded in the past. You've become a really dear friend of mine. I appreciate you. Uh, but I'm excited to take this back to the business side and talk about naming again, very specifically though, in honor of Earth Month, which we're technically past.

It’s still worth discussing naming within the Earth Month context, brands that are doing good for the planet. And what better person to talk to than yourself? Before we go there for the people that don't know you and how awesome you are. Do you mind just doing a quick intro of yourself, what you're building at Lexicon.

[David Placek]

My, my pleasure. I'm David Placek. I'm the founder and creative director of Lexicon Branding. And our, the whole focus of the company is to create value for our clients through the development of brand names, nomenclature, brand architecture, those things all kind of, uh, glued together, under one roof here at Lexicon Branding.

[Bill Kenney]

And for the people that are watching, there are some people that are listening, but for the people that are watching, they can see some of those names right behind you. I love that back wall. Let's call them out for the people that are listening. Uh, you've named Febreze, uh, Lucid, which we're going to talk about Impossible Foods, which we might talk about, BlackBerry.

Uh, what else is back there? Sonos. Uh, I can see Subaru Outback is back there. Uh, what am I missing? I mean, look at all the stuff back there. Kudos to you, sir. Oh, the PowerBook. Um, Swiffer, Dasani, the water. Well, well done.

[David Placek]

Okay.

[Bill Kenney]

Quite the list of clients. Uh, Lexicon is how old now?

[David Placek]

Well, this is, we're headed into our 41st year here at Lexicon.

[Bill Kenney]

Wow. Wow.

[David Placek]

Four decades.

[Bill Kenney]

Does it feel like a long time? Does it feel like it's flown by?

[David Placek]

Uh, mostly flown by. It's been a, uh, you know, a very interesting life for me and for others that have worked here and are still working here at Lexicon. We, we really have achieved, I think, beyond my sort of dreams, what we've done here in terms of what we have been able to do for our clients and, and really do for our, our, ourselves here, our employees, our team here at Lexicon.

And in doing that. And in doing that, we have learned so much about different categories, um, different aspects, different challenges of marketing, different cultures. I mean, we, you know, we have created names for clients in 23 countries. Uh, and I've had the good fortune of visiting many of those countries and learning more about how those cultures, how people think and how they're different, how they think differently.

So, uh, very grateful for where we are.

[Bill Kenney]

So I didn't intend on this to be a segue, but it actually lines up to be a good one. 40 years ago, 41 to be exact. When the business started, sustainability was not really a word that was thrown around much that was probably left to the kind of subcultures. That's obviously top of mind now, front and center, got the introduction of electric vehicles, pushing fast and furious, sustainable food, farming, all types of stuff now, sustainability is obviously big. Which will lead us into our conversation. So maybe my first question, which is more high level, is there anything different in approaching naming for that type of industry? Or is it all the same? The process, I suspect, is exactly the same. But what else are you considering?

[David Placek]

The process is essentially the same. I think the thing that we really consider is, uh, we have to be very careful about being very forthright and very honest, about, about the name that we're developing for a particular thing. So first, like, let's understand the true impact of this product and what it does.

Uh, we try desperately to avoid claims or promises really, when it comes to things that are sustainable. Um, our belief in this category and it applies to other categories is — let's under promise and then over deliver, uh, for, for, for people are skeptical. You know, there's this whole thing of greenwashing or bluewashing.

Which is just to sort of make our customers and our employees feel good. Let's make one little small step, which is usually not very hard to do towards sustainability. And, and that’s what borders on insincerity in our opinion. So, so we, we sometimes turn down projects because we think it's at least tending towards, you know, a greenwashing.

[Bill Kenney]

Okay. Yeah. Interesting. I posed the question. I hadn't considered that angle. Yeah. I could see in a world, like I said, that we seem to all be kind of like pushing for, you know, I want this planet to continue to spin as long as possible. Uh, it can be easy, I guess, for maybe some companies to want to greenwash, even if that is not authentic to who they are.

It is authentic to Lucid though. Let's talk about Lucid.

[David Placek]

Okay.

[Bill Kenney]

A brand that probably when you were naming it, well, not probably, nobody knew about it because it was literally brand new. Um, now I suspect many people, I said, there's one actually that, um, picks up from our school. I see Lucid's here and there they're becoming more prominent, not as much as Tesla, but they're getting there.

Uh, in our local mall in New Jersey, there's actually a Lucid store. You can walk into it and sit in two of the models, uh, really nice cars. So can you take us through as much as you can legally of like what it was like to enter that project, what it's like to come up with names, uh, for now what is a big brand like that?

[David Placek]

Uh, of course, we're, we're really proud of the work we did for what was the, the company was originally called Ativa, A-T-I-E-V-A. Um, I, I can't remember the origin of that name, but you can see that it, It just doesn't, relative to buying an Ativa or talking about it, it's not very memorable. It's not that easy to pronounce.

So they were smart, uh, to say, now's the time to change the name. And when we were changing the name, they were just working on clay models, right? It's a very impressive team. Uh, I, I have to say, uh, you know, we're so fortunate here to work with many impressive people, but the team at Ativa in those days was filled with passion, filled with intelligence.

Many of them came from Tesla, so they had that background, and what separated them and allowed us to kind of open the gates for a name like Lucid was that they saw themselves as a technology company. Um, you know, the expression that is somewhat common today is software on wheels, right? Um, it is where cars are going.

And so, uh, as we spoke with them and worked with them, it became clear that, um, the creative criteria was that we shouldn't sound like just an ordinary car, right? And so we took this idea of software on wheels and intelligence and software and we began to think about naming a software company in addition to naming a car.

And we also had an internal criteria that said, you know, if any car company, if Ford on a regular, you know, model, which wasn't an EV, wasn't highly advanced, didn't have an incredible design like they do, could use the name, we shouldn't show it to them. So when we showed them names, we had a very short list, and, and Lucid was one, and of course what it means, you know, a lucid thought, a lucid idea, a lucid strategy, um, and the fact that it, it, it didn't seem just naturally on a car, but when you looked at, when we looked at their clay models and did, you know, did some photographs of them, it, it seemed to fit with the aerodynamics of the car.

And, you know, it went through the trademark system, which in the automotive class, which includes, you know, not just cars, but tires and transmissions and motorcycles. Clearance is unbelievably difficult.

[Bill Kenney]

Wow. I love that. Let's unpack a little bit of that. I love the mindset of if it seems like it would fit on another brand's car, we shouldn't even present it. I think that puts you already in a different type of sandbox to play with names and to think about it more as a software company. Fantastic points.

Already getting light bulbs going off in my head. Uh, what?

[David Placek]

It forces people to think differently, right? And that's part of our job. Part of my personal philosophy is how do we get people to think differently about this project? Otherwise. You get a lot of ordinary names, right? Uh, names of animals, names of sky, cirrus, clouds, things like that. That won't do them much good.

Remember, in my introduction, I said we are about value creation. Creating value through a name. And, if you're gonna sound like other car companies, you're not really creating much value.

[Bill Kenney]

Yeah. Well said. That'll be a snippet that gets cut out. Uh, how hard? Now we're in similar industries, this world of brand and more specifically servicing clients. How hard was it to get them on board with that name? Was it an epiphany that they were like, Oh my God, this is it. Was there some people bought it, but others were not.

[David Placek]

For them, it wasn't, uh, it wasn't a traumatic event. We definitely have clients that, uh, and sometimes rightly so struggle with it. Um, they were quite, uh, I would say managerial about it. not bureaucratic, but let's look at a set of names. Let's move them through the legal process. Um, when we get down to a very, very short list of names, let's then kind of rethink the advantages and disadvantages and, Lucid, just won, uh, you know, in terms of it, all names have assets and liabilities.

I've never seen one that doesn't, but you really want to stack up. You want to have more plusses than minuses and Lucid really, really did. So, it was actually a pretty smooth process, um, for, for us and for them.

[Bill Kenney]

Yeah, great. Love to hear that. Win, win. I can't help but think and I'm not going to ask you the question. What are the names on the board? And if they're like, I'm glad that one didn't pass because like most things after you live with it for a while, you're like, Oh, this, this is it. It was meant to be this, but maybe they had been eyeballing a different one that had more negatives than plusses, but maybe they loved it for a particular reason.

We see that all the time with people trying to land on logo selections and things that are more visual.

[David Placek]

Right. You know, I can't, at this point, I can't recall. Uh, I mean, we're, we're talking seven or eight years ago, the other names, but I do recall that they, you know, they're, we're all working with all engineers and actually one, He had a design, he was, you know, a fantastic person. And so it was much more of an engineering kind of precision, plusses and minuses, and then making thoughtful decisions, which I think, I think evidences itself in the look and feel and success of the car, which is just a fabulous car.

[Bill Kenney]

Yes. Yep. My son and I sat in it and I said, go get mom, get her over here to sit in this car. She still can't get on the EV thing. I'm like, don't worry about that, just look at the beauty of this machine. Really beautiful cars. Um, really interesting name. Is there any kind of like key takeaways? I guess outside of Lucid. I know that you also named Subaru Outback. Is that right? Am I getting that correct?

[David Placek]

We did. We did.

[Bill Kenney]

That's it's close to the planet. It's not an electric vehicle, but it is a brand that really cares about the planet. I think huge sponsorships of the national parks of the country and all these types of things.

Is there any correlation to naming those types of kind of industries and cars?

[David Placek]

Well, that's a different story, but I think we might connect the dots here. Subaru came to us really with the, they'd identified a need that they really had to have some sort of an SUV, beyond their current sedan cars to really gain a level of share in the marketplace that created the revenue they needed to keep going.

The company was not in trouble, but they could see a horizon where they really needed to make some changes. And so, they came to us wanting really an, um, a name out of the American West. And we said, we get it, we get the ruggedness, we get the spirit, the pioneer spirit, but really it's when you think of Pathfinders and all the other Land Rovers, all those, that space has been taken.

So I said, we'll get you to rugged, we'll get you to sort of, you know, a vehicle that can roam the earth. But let's do it somewhere else. Let's look at Africa. Let's look at, and of course we stumbled, I'll use the word stumble because we probably did, onto Australia and hence the Outback. And our next model for them was the Forester.

So, both very natural names. Uh, their campaign was about love, right, which has transferred into kind of love the planet and care for the planet. They, they are a, you know, we've, we've worked with them on tag lines and other things, doing research. Wonderful company. I think very committed to what they're doing from a planet standpoint.

So I think it does go with what Lucid is doing.

[Bill Kenney]

Yeah. Um, interesting. I went to the, um, the New York City International Auto Show on Easter to literally like on the day - Easter Sunday. Um, we went into the city. We don't have a ton of family in the area.

So we're like, let's just do something totally different on Easter. Went in to see the show. And I was really taken back by the Subaru booth. And when I say booth, I mean, it was like, you know, an exhibit. It was a massive part of this footprint of this building in the city. So much so I came home and I wrote a lot about it that night.

And I turned it into a LinkedIn post the next day, because as a brand person, I just couldn't help but be compelled by the fact that like, I would have never guessed I was going to leave that giant show with Lamborghinis and the most exotic cars and the newest, best, and I was going to be struck by Subaru. I posted that the next day and you better believe I found out about this Subaru love and this culture for a brand. That's the best performing LinkedIn post I've ever had ever to date. It's starting to creep up into a hundred thousand impressions. I only posted it like three weeks ago, Subaru, that company commented on it at that moment.

I was like, Oh, Subaru. They really have a thing here. So I just wanted to highlight that because exactly what you said is right. There's like, there's an affinity for that brand and a love for it. With the story of love.

We've kind of gotten off track of the EV stuff, but man, Subaru is they're nested in there on On brands that care about planet.

[David Placek]

You said something really interesting there.

I'll just comment on that. Um, And it goes back to people doing a little bit of greenwashing or bluewashing. I think companies, before they enter into this sustainability messaging, is ask themselves, do we really care here? Because, as an example, they really do care. By what they do, their contributions to the national parks, all this, and their advertising and how they care about their customers, right?

It all kind of links together and makes for a great story, which is why on your LinkedIn post, you got so many reviews, which is phenomenal. Think about it.

[Bill Kenney]

I couldn't believe it. I was, I literally thought I was just going to type out a little thing. People are gonna be like, oh, that was a cool thought experiment. Like moving on, just walk right by it. I'm like, I felt the thing and it's real because all these people are confirming it, they're coming out of the woodworks.

And yes, I love that brand. And here's why I'll never buy anything else but a Subaru. And I'm like, Oh shit. I mean, I see a lot of Subarus when I go to Vermont camping and I love that. But I didn't realize how much, uh, kind of energy they had building within that brand. All right, let's move off of cars.

[David Placek]

Okay.

[Bill Kenney]

Let's go to another company that you named within this space doing something completely different.

And please break it down for us. A company named Mainspring. Am I getting that right?

[David Placek]

Yeah, that's correct. So this is a very interesting story. There's a little bit of science to this, but this was a company came to us called Etagen, E-T-A-G-E-N.

[Bill Kenney]

What’s with these really tricky names? Is this how it always goes?

[David Placek]

Many times it does, uh, particularly, particularly when it started by three or four, uh, Stanford PhDs and engineers.

[Bill Kenney]

I see. I see.

[David Placek]

And so there's a concept in, uh, electrification called linear generation, which is, I mean, in science experiments in, in high school, you know, you, you wrap a copper coil around something and you can pass something back and forth.

Well, they did that. I'm taking a very simple explanation there and they did that on a large scale. And so with a linear generator. Which would be about the size of a container cargo ship that you see on these ships coming in and out of bays, right? So that would sit in a parking lot of a shopping center, probably the size of the shopping center where you saw the Lucid, right?

And that would be local energy powering that entire shopping center. So if there's, you know, an earthquake or a substation fails 10 miles away, that shopping center will not be affected. It's also better for the environment. It's energy efficient and it's less expensive. So, um, they're now well-funded and I think over the next few years, you're going to see these linear generators established in schools, hospitals, shopping centers, airports.

It, you know, one of those generators or two, depending on the size of the airport could electrify an entire airport.

[Bill Kenney]

Wow. So they come in with another challenging name. Well not challenging. Just kind of one of these. I don't know. Correct me if I'm wrong. We made up a name. It sounded good at the time. Now we realize it's not going to help us move forward.

People are like, how do I say it? Can't spell it worth a dime. Help us find a name. Is that kind of how it goes?

[David Placek]

Yeah, exactly. For them. And one of the things with Etagen is that, you know, it's not necessarily that reliable, it's a little up and down bumpy, and it just wasn't that credible of a name. Right. And really what I said when we talked to them the first time is this is an incredible breakthrough, potentially game changing product, and you're going to have to raise a lot of money to fund this thing.

And so your first target here is credibility with venture capitals and private equity. It was a difficult project because how do you, how do you set someone up, which is really what we do at Lexicon is we create the vessel to tell the story. How do you set and create that vessel so that someone leans forward and says, I'm interested in that.

So we looked for metaphors of what this thing does. And people kind of know what a mainspring is, right? It's used, you know, in business. Like, hey, the mainspring of our organization is that group over there. Um, or this watch has a mainspring. And so we looked pretty hard at that. Legally, we were, uh, just very lucky that it was very clear in this space and, um, they adopted it quite easily.

Because it was so easy for people to communicate what it is.

[Bill Kenney]

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Understood. Fantastic. So, uh, I guess a similar story, which is they see it, they go, wow, we get it makes sense. Let's run it through legal. If it wins, we'll take that.

[David Placek]

Yes, in that, in that particular case, there was three or four names. Once again, I can't remember what the names are, that made sense and, for us, that, that was one of the situations where we said this, this really is the best name for you because people get the metaphor or the analog, however you want to, you know, what, what word you want to use there, because the action of it is in many ways a mainspring.

[Bill Kenney]

Sure. Yeah. Very cool. Very cool. And I, I like what you said too, is, um, it gets people to lean in and say, I'm interested. And speaking selfishly on the side of the work that we do, sometimes those metaphors, analogies, like seemingly built-in narrative to a word helps propel what we do, not in the sustainability space, but Braze is a good example of a company that you named that we then built the visual and verbal identity around it because of the word braze and what it implies, we had a starting point to really run with and continue that narrative.

And it worked out fantastic. They still maintain that look. And that was 2016. I think we're almost coming up on 10 years. It's hard to believe.

[David Placek]

They've done incredibly well as a company, uh, but very talented group of people, uh, very easy to work with, uh, filled with passion. Yeah, I, I, they, they were a very enjoyable, um, client team.

[Bill Kenney]

So sustainability, coming back to that again.

[David Placek]

Yes.

[Bill Kenney]

What do you think is what's most interesting in that space? Th at's going to pop up that you're excited to name.

[David Placek]

Well, I think we're going to see, we're on the verge of a lot of new materials that will come that are, you know, fed by fermentation and other techniques. I think the power of AI to help develop these formulas will push this along further. So I think we're going to see a whole new generation of sustainable materials made mostly from natural materials that can be fermented, but fermented in certain ways so that material comes out.

[Bill Kenney]

Yeah. Interesting. I hadn't thought about that.

[David Placek]

A great reduction in, uh, things like, nylon, for, uh, materials. Um, hopefully there'll be some real substitutes for plastic because we just, we, plastic is everywhere on this planet and it, it shouldn't be. And so I think that's a category that we're looking into.

Um, we have developed one brand in that area called Creo, C-R-E-O, uh, so, so we're making up names now because, you know, the names like Dynamite, Nylon, and Kevlar are all coin solutions. And so it's a little less challenging, and from a legal standpoint, um, less traumatic from a clearance standpoint when you're doing those coin solutions. And yet for consumers, they fit into this, because we're so used to materials being named in an artificial way, in a synthetic way.

[Bill Kenney]

I see.

[David Placek]

We just want to make sure that they feel natural, that they're structured more now.

[Bill Kenney]

Yeah. Yeah. And do you mind unpacking that a little bit for maybe the word nerds that are listening? When you say structured more naturally, you're talking about actual letter form configuration.

[David Placek]

Yeah, the structure of that, we didn't do this, but if we asked a hundred people, do you think this word Creo is a real word? Probably somewhere around 70 percent of the people would have said, well, I don't know anything about it, but I think it's a real word. Yeah, I think, I think it could be in the dictionary because it really does look like a real word, right?

It starts with a consonant, consonant cluster, CR. That's very common. You know, things like crunch, we start with that, that EO occurrence is very common in different words. And so it's almost like we cut off a word like creosote.

[Bill Kenney]

Yes. Yes. I see. As opposed to if I'm, if I'm recalling it correctly, like Etagen or something feels like a made up scientific medicine name kind of thing.

[David Placek]

Right. I mean, the opposite of what we're trying to do with natural structure is the pharmaceutical industry where we don't really do a lot of work because it's just scrambled letters that are hard to pronounce, somewhat intimidating, and memorability is almost at ground zero.

[Bill Kenney]

Yeah, yeah, you gotta have a real good jingle. You gotta have those medical commercials with that real catchy jingle. That's the only way you remember the name of any of those medicines.

[David Placek]

Yeah.

[Bill Kenney]

None of which come to mind right now.

[David Placek]

No, no. Only if you have a particular disease state or you're going through, you know, something else where it's so important for you to remember something, uh, that you'll remember it then. But other than that, you won't. You won't.

[Bill Kenney]

All right, then I'll just finish off with one question here and I'll let you go on your day, naming the next new biggest brands in the world, sir, for, for the people that are not ready to say hire companies like you and I, we still want to be able to provide value in these episodes, these conversations.

So what would you tell people that are the, I'm just going to put a name together for now, knowing that I'm going to have to change in the future. Like what's maybe the one or two things that they just consider these things, so they can get a little bit of longevity or punch out of that name.

[David Placek]

Well, I'll really return to this notion of, uh, value creation. You have to start with, what's the value we want to create here? How can the name help us do that? Right? So you certainly want whatever you do, make it relatively easy to pronounce. Because if it's easy to pronounce, memorability will go up and make it easy.

This is the final thing. I'll say really is there's a whole body of knowledge in linguistics around processing fluency with something where the you know, Our minds can look at it and grok something, take something away from it, right? And so, make sure when you're naming something, is there something familiar to this?

Now, the trick is, don't be too familiar, because then you're boring, right? And people walk away. So, that, that's, that's difficult.

[Bill Kenney]

Well done and bonus points for using the word grok in an interview. You got first for that. No surprise coming from you, sir. Uh, well, listen, David, I appreciate you. I found that really insightful myself. I love getting inside here in the background of certain projects. And I know people that are interested in naming in any capacity will find this valuable.

And I look forward to our next dinner in the city.

[David Placek]

You know it. Always a pleasure, my friend. Take care.

[Bill Kenney]

All right, ciao.