LSG Sky Chefs, an international brand known for its airline catering, galley equipment and in-flight management, called upon Interbrand Hamburg to help develop Spiriant into an autonomous brand. After conducting market research and analyzing the scope of its in-flight equipment business in relation to its total offerings, it was clear there was great potential for an independent brand.

Under the flagship LSG Sky Chefs brand, the company’s in-flight equipment has won the Crystal Cabin Award, the Observeur du Design Award, the red dot: best of the best award and the Gold Mercury Award. As LSG Sky Chefs expands its portfolio of food management, onboard retail management, supply chain management and operations management to include lounge and train services, as well as school and hospital catering, Spiriant will carry on its award-winning tradition of in-flight product and equipment design.

Spiriant provides the Enlight product line, an eco-friendly series of lightweight, compact and durable porcelain tableware, trays and sugarcane tableware and meal boxes. The brand also provides a line of natural toiletries, linens, 100% cotton hot towels and ergonomic galley equipment.

To differentiate the newly independent Spiriant, Interbrand Hamburg created a verbal and visual identity for the brand. "The name and the slogan Spiriant bring 'Where Inspiration meets Performance' brand promise to the point," said Richard Veit, Managing Director of Interbrand Hamburg.

Combining the essences of innovation, inspiration and initiative, the name expresses Spiriant’s work and vision for the future. The logo, incorporating a soft ampersand symbol (&) and plus sign (+) conveys the value proposition of Spiriant: creating value through the combination of emotion & function, design & technology and inspiration & performance. The secondary design element playfully embodies Spiriant’s creative process with its clients, personalizing work to meet individual needs.

Erdmann Rauer, LSG Sky Chefs, Sales Director noted, "The introduction of Spiriant underlines our intention to invest in the equipment activities even more. With more than 20 years experience in this business, we have the product knowledge, a qualified supplier base and the purchasing power to tap the existing market potential further."

Amy Edel-Vaughn is Interbrand's Community Manager.

Freedom of—and from—choice

We live in a choice-mad world. Choice is part of personal expression. The way we customize, upgrade, and add-on tells people something about who we are. Our choices are badges—Mac or PC, dog or cat, Coke or Pepsi—and we can't help but feel more invested in something when we've picked it ourselves.

What about when you can't see the product for the names—when too much choice is actually hurting you in the market? When it comes to brands, the amount of choice they present has a powerful impact on the way people understand what they offer.

Limitless choice sounds like a beautiful concept until you're handed a 20-page spiral bound menu at a diner and asked to hurry up. Contrast that with a single-page tasting menu at a high-end restaurant. There might be no choice at that point. You're going to eat what the chef serves, but in all likelihood you made a choice to go to that restaurant for that very reason. The curation and the expertise behind the menu make the highly limited option the best one.

Of course there's no magic formula for deciding how much choice is right for customers in your category, but a naming system helps them sort through your offerings in a meaningful way. When like things are named in a like way, and grouped based on principles that are intuitive to the customer experience and authentic to the brand, it's easier for your audiences to zero in on exactly what they want. What a beautiful choice.

Developing a naming system for your brand is a challenge when you're crafting it from scratch. It's even more daunting when you're designing something for a long-standing portfolio (especially one that's picked up a few acquisitions along the way). We've summarized the top nine things to think about when coming up with your naming system at the right in All Systems Go.

This week's guest author, Caitlin Barrett, is Associate Director of Verbal Identity for Interbrand and the creative lead for Naming.

When I was in college, I had an eight-dollar-a-week cereal habit. The box was blue, rather than cornfield yellow or new-start white, and it had the narrow footprint of something precious. And it was, to me, but the most striking thing about it, apart from its addictive nuggets of almond, sugar, and evaporated milk, was its name: Temptations.

More appropriate for an after-hours lounge, this presumably hard-fought and hard-won name had nothing to do with cereal and was barely relevant to the morning hours. It was a disruptor on the shelves of oats and nuts and grains and bunches, and perhaps for this reason, it disappeared from the market after one year.

I was heartbroken but clearly better off for the sake of my lean student budget and straining waistband. But I’m still reminded of the Svengali-like hold Temptations had over me when breaking up with boyfriends, swearing off dessert or mulling over word choices.

It turns out Temptations wasn’t alone. Last week I spied Complexions, Horizons and Definitions, common plural nouns that lend an inordinate amount of intrigue in a single verbal stroke. On a global scale, one might encounter Compliments (a salad company); Sensations (a potato crisp); Whistles (women’s clothing); Reflections (hot beverages); Refreshers (cold beverages); Happenings and Departures (both magazines), Signals and Signatures (both gift companies) and so on, with nary a definite article or an apostrophe to dampen the effect.

These sorts of names — real-word but not descriptive, and, most importantly, plural, but not possessive — transport me to the 1980s, when every other product sounded like a band. Remember Multiples and Units, both clothing brands? Were Cabanas, Spangles, Nips and Pacers your favorite candy brands? 

These carefree handles represented the naming approach de rigueur, perhaps signaling the ‘80’s laissez-faire economy, but not yet fully globalized market. Or perhaps they served as the business world’s one-word love letter to a burgeoning MTV generation and its shrinking attention span.

To a brand consultant, the return of these sorts of names indicates a shift in consumers’ willingness to accept a heightened narrative, an even higher-order translation of the value proposition, or an even greater distillation of the brand positioning. Whether abstraction or essence, the sense of elevation is the same: the conferring of emotional value to a commoditized category.

It’s proof that a single word can say many, many things. “This gym will give me muscles that resemble cut glass,” or, “This bar feels like the revenge of every high school outlier,” or, “This candy is a chic accessory that merits flaunting in public.” And, of course, “This cereal is actually a dessert.”

Whatever niche is being filled, whatever desire being fulfilled, a simple, evocative name can do wonders to tell a story and transfix an audience—in some cases, for years to come.

Can you think of other similar examples? Post a comment or come chat with us on Facebook.

Brenda Natoli is an Associate Director of Verbal Identity at Interbrand, New York.