The FDA approved Monday one of the most talked about drugs to stop the coronavirus. It's called Comirnaty.
It is known as the Pfizer vaccine, or perhaps better, the Pfizer BioNTech mRNA COVID vaccination. Now that the vaccine is officially approved, it can now be called Comirnaty.
Terrible? Amazing? It's amazing! Intelligencer asked professional namers.
Michael Bierut (partner at Pentagram Design) said, "I try to not be too harsh when it comes to new names because they're still new." When evaluating a novel title, the first step is to try to remember how to pronounce it. He tried.
"It's like co, it starts with co.
It's got mRNA in it. Co-mater-at No, no, no: Cromatery?"
He didn't get there.
It gets easier after a few tries. It's like saying community. Enjoy a spoonful of peanut butter.
While you're in Dublin.
Koe-MIRna-tee
Bierut and other people who work on names of things agreed that it is difficult to name and that the space for pharmaceutical naming is especially challenging due to a variety of reasons, from regulatory to linguistic.
"I really appreciated the challenge they faced!" Bierut said that it's easy to snap pictures and then say "How funny," but Bierut was most recently part of the team that called OMNY. This is the name you tap on your phone to pay for the New York City subway.
There was certainly a sense of dismay, or at the very least, empathy among the members of the larger naming community about Comirnaty.
Mike Carr, NameStormers' founder and CEO, said that he always gives clients an honest assessment. He has been naming things since 1980. NameStormers' Angry Orchard (and CarMax) are his most enduring successes. "This name is as bad as I have ever seen."
Molly Davis, chief storyteller and strategist at Wonsupona which does strategic brand naming, storytelling, said, "Let's first say that any naming process can be extremely difficult. According to what I know, this name had a difficult assignment: it needed to include COVID-19 and mRNA, as well as community and immunity.
This ambition could be the reason it didn't work out.
She explained that "often when there are multiple naming objectives, it is easy for the real story behind a name to get lost and the effort to appease executives gets wasted." Comniraty is at first glance as confusing as the past few years," she wrote, spelled Comirnaty with kindness.
Margaret Wolfson, River + Wolf's founder and creative director, wrote in an email that "the creators of this name compressed all these spot-on allusions within four syllables." It is difficult to do this, especially considering the strict regulations and issues surrounding trademarking and pharmaceutical naming. Some speakers might find it difficult to pronounce the name, since "mirnaty" doesn't roll off the tongue well and is not an elegant sound. People will soon get used to it, and the combination of relevant concepts makes it a winning name.
Names are not just about sound. You can't ignore the way it looks. It has all those rounded letters that make it difficult to read: Cmmmmnnmmrnty.
Carr stated, "You must be able spell it and you have to know how to pronounce it." "This name is a failure on all counts."
The Brand Institute, an expert in pharmaceutical naming, created the new name for the Pfizer vaccine. The name isn’t new to Europe. It was first introduced by Pfizer when it received EU regulatory approval.
Did you know that the Moderna vaccine is called Spikevax in English? That name sounds kinda...metal.
Fierce Pharma reports that BioNTech considered RnaxCovi and Kovimerna as well as Covuity. None of these names are great. BioNTech is like all companies that capture names: According to the U.S Patent and Trademark Office they have incredible names such as RIBOSPHERE and BLADDERTYPER.
Big Pharma's COVID vaccine parents are not only faced with branding challenges. They must rebrand products that are well-known around the globe.
Bierut said that they spent months learning the names and getting to know them. "Pfizer is kinda the Coca-Cola, Moderna feels a bit like Pepsi. J&J ended-up being like RC Cola. It's a funny thing. The sponsoring companies were not pleased that they had given them brand profiles.
They now have a mountain to climb. These new names that we will learn will change the public's views and opinions about vaccines. Bierut warned that this creates a new and difficult slope for these brands to climb in their attempt to invade our consciousness.
It seems unlikely.
Carr stated that the golden rule of a brand name is to be memorable. Carr said that name testing is something we do all the time. After a few days, you call the company and ask them if they remember the new Pfizer vaccine. They reply, "Oh, great, I was excited about that." You then say, "Okay, what was that called?"
"I'm willing to bet that you have almost zero people."