Catchword is an American branding firm founded in 1998. With offices in California and New Jersey, Catchword has created brands such as Upwork, Asana, Versant for NBCUniversalâÂÂs cable networks, Popcornmeter for Rotten Tomatoes, and Pippit for ByteDance. In addition to naming, the company provides brand strategy, visual identity, and brandable domain names.
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.
Services offered by Catchword include company and product naming, naming strategy and architecture, linguistic analysis, trademark prescreening, brand strategy and positioning, logos and visual identity systems.
Catchword reviews brand names and provides naming and branding tips and insights 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.
Catchword has created notable company and product names, such as Asana, Versant (NBCU/Comcast), Refreshers (Starbucks), Atlas (Volkswagen), Upwork, Also (Rivian), Popcornmeter (Rotten Tomatoes), Snap'd and Puff'd (Cheez-It), Pippit (ByteDance), Circaloft (The North Face), Maxsight (Moody's), Vuity (Allergan), Medallia, The Bridgespan Group, Keysight (Agilent), ClearCurve and Fibrance (Corning), Optane and Arc (Intel), Maxify (Canon), Vantara (Hitachi), and Nature's Promise (Ahold).
Catchword has created wordmarks and logos for Fullsight, TailFin, Catalyx, and PaperPie.
CatchwordâÂÂs clients include Aetna, Allergan, Amazon, AMC Networks, Boston Scientific, ByteDance, California State Bar, 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.
Catchword has also been recognized by Clutch, DesignRush and Influencer Marketing Hub for several years.