TCMBA #10 - How to Name Your Coffee Product
If you were here last week you might remember me talking about a sandwich called Mark’s Last Hurrah that left me with sweaty palms and a deli salad.
If you missed it, you can catch up here.
When you read the words, “Mark’s Last Hurrah” on a menu, do you have any idea what it is? Would you think it was a turkey salad sandwich?
I might think it’s a high fat stack of gluttony because Mark is having a final good time before his heart attack.
But that wouldn’t be correct. That’d be me projecting my experience, tastes, and judgements onto a sandwich.
The point?
Say what’s in the tin.
What the hell does that mean?
You can read more on Wikipedia, but here’s the original advertisement the phrase was coined from.
Essentially, it means that the name of something should tell you what it does.
Like 5 year wood stain. It stains wood for 5 years.
Or bubble wrap. It wraps your stuff in bubbles.
And even the title of Tim Ferriss’s book, “The 4-Hour Work Week.” It teaches you how to work only four hours per week.
So what would I rename this sandwich?
Turkey Salad Sandwich.
That way, folks like me can make an instant choice to order or pass over. The line keeps moving and the customer feels a sense of ease and satisfaction because they’re getting exactly what they want.
Okay okay, you’re right. You can’t exactly call your new bag of coffee, Brown Beans that are Actually Seeds that Can Help you Wake Up.
So instead of being so on the nose, consider your full product set.
Is this coffee a lighter roast than most of your others with higher acidity? Take that into consideration when naming your product.
Is it a blend intended for a different brew method than the others? Call that out or allude to it.
This post from Forbes is helpful for getting you started on a process for naming your products, though I do have some edits:
Their recommendation to look at Latin, Greek, and Norse words/mythology all sound pretty “Western” to me. Be conscious of that but also be conscious of cultural appropriation.
Lean on your brand and your Mission/Vision. If you have some kind of theme or inspo in your brand, can you tie your naming to that? Do be careful not to take this too far. Hit pause if the name stops being descriptive and becomes too abstract to quickly understand. Getting external non-coffee person feedback helps.
Keep your finger on the pulse of existing trademarks. You don’t want to fall in love with a name only to find out you can’t use it because another company beat you to it. You can search the US Patent and Trademark Office database here (sorry for folks not in the US! I bet your home country has something similar.) or LegalZoom can help you for a small fee.
My last edit that bears repeating: say what it does on the tin. Try your darnedest to be as descriptive as possible.
Let the naming begin!
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