Competitive audit
See also: competitive research, naming audit
A competitive audit maps the names already present in a category: who is there, what patterns they follow, and which territories are occupied. It is the research a naming process runs before generating anything.
In practice
The audit produces two things: a list of what to avoid, and a map of what nobody has taken. Both are only visible once the category has been read systematically, which is why generation that starts before the audit tends to rediscover what already exists.
Kim and Mauborgne's Cirque du Soleil case is an audit story in outline. As their article tells it, the company did not copy what the circus industry offered. It built something that blended circus with theatre and grew revenue 22-fold over ten years while the circus industry was in decline. The lesson for naming is the method, not the result: look at what everyone in the field does before choosing what to do.
A usable audit is a table. Each competitor gets its name, its type (founder name, descriptive, coined, compound), its length, its sound and the claim it makes. Two things go wrong. The audit stops at direct competitors, so the name collides with a neighbouring category buyers also know. Or it is done once, early, and the shortlist is never checked against what launched in the meantime. Run it before generation and again before the decision.
Where this sits in the process
The studio treats this as part of a single run rather than a separate service: the category is read, the creative direction is chosen from what the research found, candidates are generated in volume and then cut against criteria that were written down first. See how the studio works for what that produces, or the naming module for the stages themselves.
Related concepts
- Whitespace: The unclaimed territory in a category: how whitespace is identified and why it is not automatically worth taking.
- Naming convention: Every category has patterns its names obey.
- Distinctiveness: Distinctiveness is always relative to who is already standing there.
Frequently asked questions
What is a competitive audit in naming?
A competitive audit maps the names already present in a category: who is there, what patterns they follow and which territories are occupied. It is the research a naming process runs before it generates anything.
How do you do a competitive name analysis?
Collect the competitors and their neighbours, then record each name's type, length, sound, structure and the claim it makes. Put it in a table, not an impression. The patterns and gaps appear when the names sit side by side.
Why audit competitors before generating names?
Generation that starts first tends to rediscover names that already exist and to repeat the category's habits. The audit gives a list of what to avoid and a map of what nobody has taken, so the candidates start in the right place.
How many competitors does a naming audit need?
There is no fixed number. It has to cover the direct competitors and the neighbouring categories whose names buyers also know, because a name can collide with a brand outside the narrow field. Stop when new entries no longer change the patterns.
Sources
- [1]Blue Ocean Strategy (Harvard Business Review, October 2004)— Harvard Business Review, reprinted by OpenCasebook
- [2]Trademark distinctiveness— Wikipedia