Oxford Instruments
Brand and naming strategy for NanoScience
Strategic Challenge: to find a new name for the Triton Mk8
Oxford Instruments had come up with over 100 options, most of which had been dismissed straightaway.
Creative Challenge:
To develop more than a name, to build a brand.
What emotions and personality did we want to create for the brand?
Developing a name is always challenging with a reason why. The brief was to create a name that had positive connotations with flexibility, versatility and adaptability.
Through research, we discovered that in Greek mythology, the God Proteus had the ability to change shapes. From this feature of Proteus comes the adjective protean, meaning "versatile", "mutable", or "capable of assuming many forms".
After extensive name checking we settled on Proteox as a reference to the OX in Oxford Instruments. As the name came from a God, we explored the creative theme of creation and evolution to support the line 'next generation thinking'. From this the personality of the brand was formed based on two archetypes - 'Alchemist' and the 'Shaman'
The 'Alchemist' archetype is a sub-set of the 'Magician' brand, and is often used for new technology. But to give it that God like feel we added the 'Shaman', an archetype that reflects a world beyond our knowledge.
