Brand Institute European Director on the Challenges of Linguistic Perception in Global Brand Naming

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Mar 10, 2023, 10:00 ET

MIAMI, March 10, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- One of the most significant challenges that naming teams face when developing global brands is the differences between languages. This challenge is even more acute for teams developing pharmaceutical brand names, which are typically newly invented words that have no established meaning or pronunciation.

"Marketing teams want global brand names that are easy to pronounce and write in all major languages, and that can make the process of developing a global brand name very difficult," said Silvia Bellucci, Director of Brand Development at Brand Institute's office in Basel, Switzerland. "This is in large part due to the complexity of the English language."

English is often referred to as the language of business. It's the most widely spoken language in the world, and it's the official language of many countries. But English orthography is unique among the world's languages: It's not only complex and at times irregular, but also lacks the phonetic consistency of many other languages.

"Italian and Spanish, for example, are relatively intuitive and phonetically consistent," commented Dr. Bellucci. "Once you know the sounds that each letter makes, you'll be able to spell the word just by sounding it out."

One naming strategy is to utilize roots that are shared among Romance languages (i.e., Latin roots) as well as Greek roots. But that doesn't account for the myriad other languages and dialects that are part of the global economy.

"At the end of the day, consumers will need to learn the intended pronunciation of brand names," said Dr. Bellucci. "To that end, companies should pronounce their brand names consistently in all communications and marketing efforts."

About Brand Institute and our wholly owned regulatory subsidiary, Drug Safety Institute

Brand Institute is the global leader in pharmaceutical and healthcare-related name development, with a portfolio of over 4,000 marketed healthcare brand names, 1,300 USAN/INN nonproprietary names for 1,200 clients. The company partners on over 75% of pharmaceutical brand and nonproprietary name approvals globally every year with healthcare manufacturers. Drug Safety Institute is composed of former naming regulatory officials from global government health agencies, including Food and Drug Administration (FDA), European Medicines Agency (EMA), Health Canada (HC), American Medical Association (AMA), and the World Health Organization (WHO).

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SOURCE Brand Institute, Inc.