(Don’t) Fill In The Blanks For A Better Name

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

Want to create a memorable name for your company, product or service? Use the “fill in” technique, which makes your customer’s brain work (and thereby leads to greater memorability).

Here is a great example of how the “filling in” process works. Quickly read the paragraph below:

It deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr all the ltteers in a wrod are. You can stlil raed it wouthit a porbelm bcuseae the huamn mnid wroks by a porecss of ptatern rceigontion. It dtemrines maennig bfoere porecssnig dteails.

Isn’t tihs amzanig? Your brain can make sense of even the most chaotic situation.

The science behind the brain’s “filling in” process is fascinating (read this Discover magazine article, especially the section near the end on blindsight: https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/the-vision-thing-mainly-in-the-brain). The sub-headline of the article says it all: “The eye and brain work in a partnership to interpret conflicting signals from the outside world. Ultimately, we see whatever our brains think we should.”

This “filling in” process has been shown in numerous studies to be important to generating lasting recall and favorable persuasion. If the person’s brain is engaged and filling in the gaps, then the person will remember the experience and most likely be favorable towards it.

Why does the brain do this? Carnegie-Mellon University professor George Loewenstein coined the term “curiosity gap” to describe the gap between what we know and what we want to know. When people notice a gap in their knowledge, they feel deprived, so they work hard to find the missing pieces of information to complete their knowledge.

Let’s say you want to name a new product (or it could be a service or a company or something else). A “fill-in” name for this product would give the consumer enough information about the product so that the consumer’s brain is engaged and starts to fill in the missing information.

In their article The Mind of the Puzzler psychologists Sternberg and Davidson argued that solving puzzles entails the ability to compare hidden information in a puzzle with information already in memory. More importantly, in order to solve a puzzle, the brain must combine the two types of information to form novel ideas. The thinking involved in solving a puzzle is identical to what your target customer would utilize when faced with a “naming puzzle.” When the brain successfully identifies the pattern or twist that the name entails, you will typically get an “Aha! Effect” which leads to a solid brand connection.

A great brand name will provide some sense of perspective to the target customer and the product itself, but it won’t provide the whole story. If you leave enough to the imagination that your brain gets engaged in the product/name combination and makes you curious about a product and willing to investigate it further, then your brain will fill in the blank!