A skyline or a kitchen shop?

One of the most important times to get branding and naming right, to make sure it’s effective and well strategised, is in property branding. Here at Grain this has become one of our specialties. Branding and naming is as important in property, if not more so, as it is for other products and businesses.

Recently we’ve seen some of London’s most iconic buildings fall victim to some quite unfortunate nicknames, which may have been avoided if a strong and positive name had been intentionally created. Admittedly some of these names have become so second nature that they almost surpass any connotation from the alter ego they now have. Or has London just settled for comfort in repetition? I know I’d much prefer to say that I work in The Shard as opposed to The Gherkin. A pickled food doesn’t conjure the most aspirational imagery for iconic and skyline-defining buildings.

The list doesn’t end there: we can add The Cheese Grater, The Walky Talky and The Prawn to that list of unfortunate names. On this route of sarcastic, fun poking and not particularly elegant names we would no doubt end up with such buildings as The Spatula, The Beard Trimmer or even The Bottle Opener (Shanghai has one of those already). Not names that scream sophistication or progress.

With properly named and branded strategies for London property these unfortunate nicknames could be avoided. With London’s membership together with other cities in the skyscraper club, this is an opportunity for this great city to put some of its prospective new builds on the map. The Shard has certainly done this well. But it seems it’s flying the flag alone for London at the moment. As London grows upwards we need some really great, considered branding for London property – before our skyline reads like the contents of a kitchen shop.