Namification: A Brand Naming Workshop Framework
A structured collaborative framework for naming products, initiatives, and brands, designed to turn subjective discussions into clear, strategic decisions.
A gap worth filling
During the Unified Internal Portal project, the team needed to name a new platform, and I noticed there was no structured process for it. Naming conversations were happening ad hoc across teams and projects, with no shared criteria and no creative framework to guide them. I built one: a collaborative, step-by-step workshop that takes a team from strategic alignment through creative exploration to a final shortlist.
After the first run it was adopted as a reusable internal template, available to any team across the organization that needed to name a product, service, or initiative.
All steps are explained upfront.
The strategy phase, establishing shared criteria before any name ideas are proposed.
Same framework. Different depth.
The workshop exists in two versions, designed for different audiences and time constraints.
All exercises run in grayscale, a deliberate choice to prevent color from influencing name preferences before the evaluation phase.
For teams comfortable with creative brainstorming. Condensed but complete, strategy, ideation, and decision in one session.
For broader or less experienced audiences. More exploration time, breakout rooms, and iterative refinement, better results for complex naming challenges.
Brainstorming and categorization, structured to push beyond the obvious before moving to evaluation.
A tool that outlived the project that created it.
What started as a solution for one project became a reusable resource for the whole organization, a small but durable piece of ExxonMobil's internal design toolbox.