# Catchword (company)

Catchword is a creative agency headquartered in Oakland, California, with an East Coast office in New Jersey. The company provides naming and branding services for companies in the technology, food and beverage, consumer products, financial services, healthcare and automotive industries.

## Corporate history

Catchword was founded in May 1998 as a naming agency by Maria Cypher, Laurel Sutton, and Burt Alper. The company initially focused on technology and start-up companies, but later broadened its scope to cover other industries. In January 2001, Mark Skoultchi joined the company to head East Coast operations at its New Jersey office. Since 2014, the company has been headed by Cypher and Skoultchi. In 2022, the company expanded its services and locations to two additional offices in the Denver area and in Calgary, Canada.
Catchword is a member of the Global Naming Network, which comprises naming firms from around the world collaborating on creative work and linguistic analysis.

## Services

Services offered by Catchword include company and product naming; tagline creation; naming strategy, architecture, and protocol; linguistic analysis; trademark prescreening; naming research; brand strategy and positioning; visual identity design and copywriting.
Apart from naming services, Catchword reviews brand names on its website. The company also runs the online site PopNamer, featuring name games in which the general public submits name ideas for trends, social phenomena and existing products and companies. Catchword also operates The Catchword Accelerator, a marketplace for brandable domain names.

## Work

Catchword has created notable product and company names such as Refreshers (for Starbucks); Atlas (for Volkswagen); Upwork (for Elance-oDesk); Attain (for Aetna); Fibrance, Valor and ClearCurve (for Corning); GoMotion (for SportsEngine); Optane and Arc (for Intel); Nature's Promise (for Ahold); Storyscape (for FoxNext); Charge, Flex, Surge, One, Zip, and Force (for Fitbit); Sam '76 (for Boston Beer); Keysight (spinoff of Agilent); Crazy 8 (for Gymboree); Dreamery (for Dreyer's); Infusion (for Spalding); Javiva (for Peet's Coffee & Tea); Kijiji (for eBay); Snap'd (for Kellogg's Cheez-It brand); Vantara (for Hitachi); Maxify (for Canon); Relieva and Vuity (for Allergan); Photoshop Elements (for Adobe); Asana; Bridgespan Group; FireEye; Medallia, Soluna; Ursa and Vudu.
Catchword's clients include Aetna, Allergan, Amazon, AMC Networks, Canon USA, Capital One, CBRE, The Clorox Company, Corning, Dole Foods, Dunkin' Brands, Fitbit, General Motors, Hitachi, The Home Depot, Intel, McDonald's, PwC, Royal Bank of Canada, Safeway, SEGA, Stack Overflow, Stryker, Tik Tok, Uber, Unilever and Wells Fargo Bank.

## Awards and recognition

| Competition | Year | Award |
| Hermes Creative Awards | 2019, 2020, 2022 | Gold, Platinum |
| MarCom Awards | 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 | Gold, Platinum |
| MUSE Creative Awards | 2020, 2021, 2022 | Gold, Silver |
| Transform Awards - North America | 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022 | Silver, Bronze |
| London International Awards | 2016 | Silver |
| C2A (Creative Communication) Awards | 2022 | Winner |
Catchword has also been recognized by Clutch, DesignRush and Influencer Marketing Hub for several years.