For the advertising industry, one of the more salient consequences of the rise of AI has been the emergence of scores of new ad tech—most openly promoting their utilization of AI, all jostling for shrinking attention amid a competitive market.
Podcast: Marketer's Brief
Brand naming expert shares tips for branding AI tools
Branding expert David Placek joins the Marketer’s Brief podcast to discuss the dos and don’ts of naming AI products and services
Gift Article
Gift Article
10 Remaining
As a subscriber, you have 10 articles to gift each month. Gifting allows recipients to access the article for free.
David Placek, founder and president of Lexicon Branding.
Credit:
Lexicon
Standing out in this crowd hinges on a good product and even better branding. David Placek, founder and president of Lexicon Branding, appeared on Ad Age’s Marketer’s Brief podcast this week to discuss this topic and others related to promoting new AI tools. With Lexicon, Placek has developed iconic names for brands across categories, including BlackBerry and Sonos. Now, much of his focus has turned to companies’ AI-specific needs.
“You have to have memorability here in a very cluttered space,” Placek said. “Every week, we’re getting invites from companies to talk to them about helping them brand yet another AI product, service or technology.”
When it comes to naming a new AI product or business, companies need to illustrate the technology’s complexity while keeping it human, Placek said. Lexicon has conducted two phases of research over the past year to determine what makes effective AI branding, and what consumers and developers want to see in the tools they use. For example, simply promoting an AI product as an assistant is not enough to earn consumers’ interest, Lexicon found.
Throughout the conversation, Placek outlines various branding criteria, and touches on how AI has and continues to evolve in the public eye—an important consideration as new forms of the technology, such as AI agents, emerge and shape the very perceptions that companies will need to meet.
Also read: AI in ads divides consumers
Placek also shares his thoughts on branding trends that, for better or worse, have caught on in the AI space. Is describing a tool as “AI-powered” actually communicating value? Are brands allowed to include “GPT” in their product’s name despite having no formal partnership with OpenAI, which released the first GPT models? Placek answers these questions and more in this week’s edition of the Marketer’s Brief podcast.
