Wordcraft: The Art of Turning Little Words Into Big Business

by Alex Frankel

Book Overview

In Wordcraft , Alex Frankel, a business writer who once briefly worked as a namer, tells the story of how Five major brands got their names: BlackBerry, Accenture, Viagra, the Porsche Cayenne, and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1400051045
• ISBN13: 9781400051045
• Release Date: April 2004
• Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Read this book and learn about the naming aspect of brands and branding.

Short and sweet, that's how I describe this nice little book about the importance of naming your business and/or products so revenues will be maximized. It also discusses extensively the way in which companies go about thinking up great names for their businesses and/or products. After a book is written it has to be packaged before it is sold. It can be a wonderful book, but if the cover isn't flashy and the title just right, then sales will suffer. In a way, this book is about the importance of choosing the right title for a book. A book is a product isn't it? But it also talks about titling (naming) businesses, too. There's really no systematic method to the madness of naming, and we learn this by reading this book. But naming is VERY important just the same. Besides a book full of content on the naming industry, what we get out of this book is five stories describing how big-time successful brand names got started, three of which were BlackBerry, Accenture, and Viagra. I regularly meet with entrepreneurs in my capacity as a volunteer SCORE counselor. And people starting a business usually don't discuss with me their new business' name. And I rarely raise the issue. It usually is not viewed as an important topic to consider. But after reading this book I think the author makes it clear that naming a business or product is a very important thing to consider when starting a business or developing a product. As a result, I highly recommend that any entrepreneur give this book a read so they can hopefully not hurt their business by choosing a "less than" name. I would have liked the book better if the Table of Contents had had chapter titles that were more descriptive of the book's content. There are 11 chapters in this book, but known are worth naming here. 5 stars!

A fascinating history of some blockbuster brand names

I will never think of "Viagra" the same way again. Frankel is an astute verbal anthropologist; he takes recent brand names ("blackberry") that have become household words and traces them back to their roots -- back to their early beginnings as ideas in a focus group meeting, scribbles in a whiteboard session, a twinkle in the eye of a member of the word-obsessed "naming" community. The world of creating corporate brand names is both thrilling and terrifying. (You learn how Frito-Lay has teams of scientists who have calculated the precise times of day in which people crave salt or sugar, so the company can play their commercials at the right times.) Frankel, a wonderful wordsmith himself, brings each brand's story alive. He has created the year's must-read book for anyone in advertising, marketing, business, or the business of names.

Insiders View of Marketing

What a great look inside the workings of the marketing world, for someone like me, who is not in that profession. The personal insight was very interesting and enticing. I want to know how many job offers Mr. Frankel received from this book. I would hire him to help my business-he is so creative and articulate.

Language in the Information Economy

Frankel is a journalist and also an insider. The result is a fascinating and authoritative look into an industry that most people dont realize exists: the naming industry. The output of course surrounds us in the form of the brands that have become the new vocabulary of our society and our economy. Well worth the read!