A brand consultancy specializing in brand strategy, brand architecture, naming, and name systems — partnering with select top-tier firms to deliver on specialized brand name, positioning, and architecture projects.
Mark's expertise in brand strategy, brand architecture, naming, and name systems has been leveraged by some of the world's best-known branding firms. He directed verbal branding at FutureBrand and Landor New York, and corporate branding for Sterling Brands, before founding Prequel. Clients include Boston Scientific, Deloitte, General Motors, J&J, Microsoft, Turner Broadcasting, UPS, and Visa.
Liz began on the client side, building the Marpac brand from the ground up as Marketing Director, discovering a passion for brand architecture, verbal identity, and naming. She's since named everything from startups to Fortune 500 brands to colleges, with particular expertise in B2B SaaS and CPG. Liz holds degrees from Yale and the VCU Brandcenter.
Three core capabilities — all grounded in strategy, all designed to deliver names that work in the market and hold up in court.
Company, product, and service naming — from blank page to legally cleared, market-ready name.
Organizing a portfolio of brands, products, and services into a system that makes sense.
When companies come together, the name needs to tell a new story. We specialize in post-merger and rollup naming.
From startups to the Fortune 500, we've named companies of all sizes across every major industry.
From cookies to crypto, cars to cat food — we've named products across just about every category you can think of.
We've helped some very large, very smart companies sort out their brand architecture and build naming systems that scale.
Prequel has extensive experience unifying multiple acquired brands under a single, cohesive new identity.
Every engagement follows a proven five-phase process — designed to balance creative ambition with strategic rigor and legal viability.
Role of the name, name criteria, competitive and category naming plotting, strategy, culture and expectation alignment, creative directions
Creative exploration, evaluate creative against strategic guidelines
USPTO & international trademark searches, common law trademark search, AI-powered linguistic evaluation, domain name availability
Long list presentation, narrowing & optional refinement, short list selection
Full trademark screening*, trademark report review & response, human-powered linguist evaluation*, internal name seating
*Conducted with partner; not included in fee
We do a lot of white label work for other agencies. We're typically brought in when there are naming, naming systems, and/or brand architecture needs, often as part of a larger project. We can be client-facing or just do the work in the background — whatever is preferred.
Every project is different, but our engagements typically fall into three tiers. All include our full strategic and creative process.
Expert guidance before you commit.
Typically 1–2 weeks
A single name, developed right.
Typically 3 weeks
Naming plus the strategic scaffolding to support it.
Typically 5+ weeks
All packages include preliminary trademark screening. Full trademark clearance and registration is the responsibility of the client, though we will provide support throughout the process. Pricing reflects typical ranges — we're happy to tailor scope and investment to your specific needs.
Whether you're launching something new, merging brands, or rethinking your portfolio — we'd love to talk.