Why does one brand name feel better in your mouth?

Mouthfeel is a term from the culinary world.

It means that the brand name can be said with ease and satisfaction of pronunciation. It’s not awkward to express, doesn’t contain baggage, and won’t cause word aversion or negative connotation for the customer.

Vaudeville performers were the first professionals to officially practice this tradition, using words with the hard k sounds, because they knew they were simply funnier to audiences. To quote the immortal playwright, cupcake is funny, tomato is not funny, cockroach is funny, but not if you get them, only if you say them.

Neumeier’s popular book on the united theory of brand building has fascinating insight about the importance of likability through the filter of the brand name itself. The simple question he asks is:

Will people enjoy using it?

After all, names that are intellectually stimulating, or provide a good mouth feel, have a head start over those that don’t.

Therefore, why does one brand name feel better in your mouth?

It’s all about the mouthfeel.

This topic is of interest me for a very personal reason, which is my first name.

Scott was, for the first twenty years of my life, a fairly ordinary name. In fact, that particular name reached the height of its popularity in the seventies and eighties, right when I was born.

But the name didn’t have much connotation positively or negatively, until that fateful night in college when the nametag came into the picture.

Scott slowly started becoming more than just my name, but also my brand. Scott was always preceded by or followed with the word, nametag.

But had my name been something different or longer or more complicated, it might not have stuck.

Businesspeople ask me about this topic all the time. Wondering if my namesake lent itself to better branding, solely by luck.

Scott, if you were born with some other name that was unusual, hard to pronounce, or difficult to remember, do you think your brand would have had so much virality?

Well, there’s really no way to tell, but it’s an interesting theory to float around.

Let’s think about it linguistically.

Scott is a single syllable, double consonant word. It’s not a particularly soft sounding name, since it has punchy and consonant sounds that have a hard k at the beginning and a hard t at the end.

And because of that unique word structure, my name produces a tiny little explosion of air through the mouth when people say it, which makes it slightly funnier and more memorable.

Scott is easy to spit out with conviction or humor. Scott can be said with ease and satisfaction of pronunciation.

Compare that with other names my parents could have given me.

Aaron might not have the same linguistic impact.
Jason might not be as funny of a punchline.
Abraham might sound too old fashioned to roll off the tongue.
Mohammed might not make sense considering my cultural heritage.

Scott works for a very specific set of reasons, none of which we’re under my control.

My parents just happened to give me a name that, twenty years later, people would enjoy using as a brand. Truth is, I was supposed be a girl and they were going to name me Jessica. Whew.

Who knew marketing was so dependent on luck?

It goes back to one of my favorite theories, timing isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.

If you’re struggling to hone in on the right name for your brand, just know that certain parts of human speech are funnier, more memorable and more stimulating than others.

Clorox is not an accident, as far as brand names go.

Don’t just settle on a name because your brain likes it, take the time to select a name that people’s mouths are going to love.

What’s standing in the way of people using your name?