Drug Naming Best Practices for 2012

From Happy New Year to the Year of the Dragon, the end of January is almost upon us! What better time than to release a trademark advisory containing our Pharmaceutical Drug Naming Best Practices for 2012. Combined with our latest Intro to Brandpersand Life, a six-page outline of our branding and naming services personalized for pharmaceutical and life science opportunities, we hope to shed a little bit light and related insight in regard to the present state of pharma TM development, including the following trends:

For those of you who love to read ahead, we conclude the advisory with the following words of wisdom:

Empower a team of internal professionals to develop a formalized process, begin early and always remember that it is the ability to identify the proper balance of creativity and clearance that often determines a successful outcome.

We hope your new year is off to as good a start as our own, and all of us here at Brandpersand look forward to an open and productive exchange of ideas and opportunities in the coming months.

Remembering David Wood

Today we celebrate the life of David Wood, our friend and mentor, and thank him for simply being David. The example you set remains as strong and true today, on what would have been your 69th birthday, and shall always remain.

 

David Wood, Clement Galluccio and David Jaeger, 2002.

Welcoming Winter..

...and

wishing you

a warm and wonderful

holiday season!

Ideas vs. Execution

With roughly six weeks left to 2011, my mind is already beginning to wander to the New Year and the many exciting announcements we have in store for 2012. Luckily, our clients help us daily to balance the present/future tense equation with topical branding and naming challenges.

To be posted with the 'better late than never' tag, a note of thanks to Christine Berkner for asking us to share a few pearls of naming wisdom for her March 3rd Core Concepts article, available (subscription required) from the American Marketing Association.

In the wake of the loss of Steve Jobs, the media was in overdrive with anecdotes about SJ. One of the most illuminating can be found in the NYT Op-Ed piece, "A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs."

His philosophy of aesthetics reminds me of a quote that went something like this: "Fashion is what seems beautiful now but looks ugly later; art can be ugly at first but it becomes beautiful later."

Closely related to the gestalt of SJ, the following quote strikes at the heart of the creativity and the importance of process. If you read nothing else, read this and remember the following:

"To me, ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions."

As always, my Instapaper account is chock full of great stuff collected online. 'A simple tool to save web pages for reading later' delivers its brand promise with the retrieval of the following gems as evidence:

• Kudos to Vladimir Djurovic, president of the Labbrand Consulting Company in Shanghai and a former colleague at The Nomen Group, for his pearls as shared in the NYT's "Picking Brand Names in China Is a Business Itself."
• From Fast Company, the importance of distinction in "Finding Your Brand's 'Red Sole.'"

Lastly, be sure to check out the recent launch of The Verge, arguably the foremost resource for insight into the convergence of technology and culture. Hat's Off for Brooklyn's own Joshua Topolksky!

I'll be back soon to post our Winter 2011 BrandPaper. Until then, enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday and we'll catch up in December...

Remembering Steve

A flood of memories last evening and this morning, two of which I will always hold dear. His keynote at Macworld Boston in 1997, days after returning to Apple as CEO, and standing with hundreds of others in mutual celebration. The other, much more personal, is my Dad and me upgrading my first Mac, a 512K, back in 1986 on the butcher block kitchen table of my apartment. The moment we heard the chime indicating a successful boot, as opposed to a damaged logic board, we looked at each other with a tremendous sense of accomplishment and shared success. I felt anything in the world was possible. Thank you SJ, for your inspiring life and for making a dent in this universe.