How Asians build their #naming strategy. How they choose names. Let’s take the example of Samsung. Is it a descriptive, evocative, or abstract name?
Lee Byung-chull, the founder of Samsung, attended Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan, but dropped out. His first business, a rice mill, failed, but undeterred, he founded a second one, Samsung Trading, exporting food products from Korea to China, which proved to be successful. The outbreak of the Korean War between the South and the North in 1950 forced him to move further south to Busan but also created a new opportunity: supplying trucks to US troops.
After the war, Byung-chull focused on developing the business. He imported essentials, food, and textiles. Expansion was aided by protectionist government policies aimed at boosting domestic enterprises and promoting post-war recovery. Convinced that technological innovation was key to the rebirth of economic prosperity, Byung-chull began adding new divisions to Samsung, including finance, insurance, and, in the 1960s, electronics.
The electronics sector proved particularly successful. Samsung Electronics launched a black-and-white television. Later, it entered the computer hardware market with semiconductors and telecommunications. Today, Samsung is one of the largest chip manufacturers in the world. Always focused on processes, quality, and growth, Byung-chull closely managed his businesses and believed in the potential of each employee. By the 1980s, he had added new divisions, such as shipbuilding. He passed away in 1987, but his contributions helped transform South Korea into a modern industrial nation and a technology powerhouse.
In Korean, the word Samsung means “three stars.” Lee Byung-chull’s vision was for his business to become powerful and shine like stars in the sky. So, for the entrepreneur and Korean speakers, Samsung is an evocative name, suggesting a future attribute of his business, but for the rest of the world, it is an abstract name.
Today, we can say that Byung-chull succeeded. Monolithic brand architecture is a fairly common example in the construction of Asian brands. The explanation may lie in the Asian mindset focused on simplification and efficiency.
