Starting with limitations like budget and feasibility (convergent thinking) kills growth and leads to repetitive outcomes. You must begin with an expansive, divergent phase to generate a wide pool of ideas before applying any constraints.

A great name isn't just catchy. It must be original within its category, linguistically easy for the brain to process ('processing fluent'), and contain an element of surprise that grabs attention and makes it memorable.

To avoid generic brainstorming outcomes, use AI as a filter for mediocrity. Ask a tool like ChatGPT for the top 10 ideas on a topic, and then explicitly remove those common suggestions from consideration. This forces the team to bypass the obvious and engage in more original, innovative thinking.

To find an original name, don't just look within your industry. Explore diverse domains like mythology, science, or aerodynamics. The goal is to map out a wide 'ocean' of possibilities before diving in, ensuring you discover unique concepts instead of defaulting to industry jargon.

AI can generate hundreds of statistically novel ideas in seconds, but they lack context and feasibility. The bottleneck isn't a lack of ideas, but a lack of *good* ideas. Humans excel at filtering this volume through the lens of experience and strategic value, steering raw output toward a genuinely useful solution.

Don't censor ideas early. The path to innovative marketing is generating a high volume of unconventional, even "bad," ideas. Most will fail, but the one or two that succeed can become massive multipliers for your brand, often requiring you to ask for forgiveness, not permission.

To avoid groupthink, assign teams varied briefs for the same project. One team gets the core details, another adds a conceptual ingredient like 'energy,' and a third reframes the product in a new category like 'athletic performance.' This produces distinct types of names.

People mistakenly believe their creativity drops off sharply after an initial burst, a phenomenon called the "creative cliff illusion." Research shows the opposite: idea generation and quality actually increase the longer you brainstorm. Pushing past the perceived mental block is where the best ideas are found.

Instead of traditional, costly focus groups, founders can leverage Large Language Models (LLMs) to conduct "synthetic research." These tools can simulate consumer reactions to brand names, providing rapid, low-cost feedback to guide decision-making.