Whether Naming Drugs or Writing Songs, Alum Mines Life and Creativity

By day, Alexa Lash, MA ’11, leads the creative department of an international company that names new products. By night, she strums the guitar, and sings her award-winning lyrics.

Kind of like how a superhero can’t reveal their alias, Lash can’t talk specifics about which products she’s named in her full-time job as Senior Vice President of Creative for Brand Institute, the world’s top healthcare naming agency. It’s top secret.

But she can talk about participating in a program in which she visits patients at hospitals to brighten their days by singing her songs.

Lash, who earned an MA in Publishing at Emerson, spoke with Emerson Today about why pharmaceuticals have such elaborate-sounding names (there is a very important reason!), what her songs are about, and her Emerson experience.

How did you get into naming?

Lash: Craigslist. I wish it were a more exciting story. The job description was just so cool. I was like, ‘Is this for real? It’s Craigslist.’ I got very, very lucky and started as a creative name developer in 2013. It still continues to be one of the coolest things I’ve ever applied for. Since my first day, I’ve been creating names for different products and have been doing so for 12 years.

What kind of products/things have you named?

Lash: Our company specializes in pharmaceutical and medical device naming. Our unofficial line is: ‘You name it, we name it’. Our official line is: ‘Where great brands begin’.

I’ve done taglines for random consumer brands, worked on food consumables, car brands. It’s run the gamut. My job never gets boring because every day it is literally different. It could be working on the next cancer drug, and the next morning it could be naming a kitchen appliance.

What goes into the thinking of naming a brand?

Lash: Basically, we talk to the client and they advise us what we’re naming, and the avenues they want us to get down. Then our team makes lots of name candidates and whittles them down. We show the clients, and they like or hate the suggestions, and then move to the next steps of the process.

Creatively, I’ve just been doing it so long it’s like second nature. It’s a really fun creative exercise… [T]hink about Apple computers. It’s sometimes referred to as an ideal [brand name]. [An apple is] something linking back to education very vaguely as a starting point. Now it’s a blockbuster brand….Naming is just a really subjective exercise.

Is there a giant white wall?

Lash: No big white wall or board. We’re all working remotely. I have used them in client offices.

How many possible names get suggested for brands? Dozens, hundreds, thousands?

Lash: The exact numbers depend upon products. We stick with them until they have a brand name.

With pharmaceuticals, you have to balance marketability and patient safety. It needs to be attractive and easy to say, and not be confused for another product. There’s this Walking Dead episode when someone was tricked into misprescribing a drug and it ended up killing someone. It’s the best example I’ve seen on TV of someone being misprescribed something because it sounds like something else. Patients are key to everything. We want to make sure names are safe, just as they are marketable.

How in the world do pharmaceuticals get named? Some of them are just so odd.

Lash: It’s because of that patient safety aspect. It can’t look or sound like other marketed products. That’s why there are those unique letter combinations. If you have a product named [Smith], you can’t have a product named [Smitha] in a similar space. If [Smith] were for breast oncology and [Smitha] is for lung cancer, you’d be at risk of killing patients. When you’re prescribing products with the pharmacy, the way they’re entered by a doctor’s note, they can’t look or sound alike. Sometimes prescriptions are entered by a computer. But prescriptions submitted by hand still exist, and you put people at risk of getting the wrong medicine.

Sometimes those weird letters mean something to the company. Stylistically, a letter might get pretty logo treatment. Patient safety is always key. It is the reason for everything.

What do you love about the job?

Lash: I get to be creative, literally every day. I have the good fortune to lead creative sessions and work with clients directly. I get to talk about naming, talk about things that interest me, throw out dad jokes and puns on a regular basis. It’s performative, with the audience being our client. I sometimes do things on the fly. I don’t know what the client is going to say in advance of our meeting. It’s exciting to have that back and forth.

What is your other job title?

Lash: Songwriter, singer, a band manager [for Alexa and the Old Fashioneds], marketing person, graphic designer — I’m doing everything for my music.

As a musician, I volunteer with Musicians on Call, an organization that sings for patients at hospitals. I worked at a pediatric hospital, and I sung to kids under 18, babies in the neonatal unit, to teenagers. I was doing that for a long time before the pandemic, and then I did virtual sessions, and now we’re back in hospital with adults. I love singing for kids.

How would you say your corporate job is similar to your music career?

Lash:  The on-the-spot creativity that happens. Creating names is all based on a prompt. I usually start with a general concept for music.

For example, [my song] ‘Stay Over’ is based on the concept of a Sunday song. I wanted to write a song about Sunday. (Sings lyrics) I just want to see you, I just want to see you, oh on Sunday morning yeah.

If you can’t figure out where to go next, you throw everything on a board. If I’m stuck on a board, I look at a rhyming dictionary and look at every word that rhymes. I’m a big fan of slant rhymes, I love the slants, the near rhymes.

You won Best of Miami Best Songwriter. What does that mean to you?

Lash: It was a huge honor. And I’ve gotten so many positive messages since then. I’ve had imposter syndrome for a long time. I talk about it. I try not to belabor it. I try to accept it for what it is and work past it. A lot of it is needing validation for what you do. Winning this award was an acknowledgment from my city and publications in this city and people who read the publications.

It meant a lot because I previously got a Readers Choice award through the Miami New Times. Winning the award for best song writer was an exceptional step up, and showed how hard I was working and people are noticing it. The day after I won the award I got responses to three emails, and people were reaching out to me about more performances. It’s kind of validating to all the things I do to promote my songwriting.

Of your own songs, which are your favorites?

Lash: It’slike picking your favorite child, but some parents do. I don’t have a favorite. I have highlights, they’re each time capsules from my life. [There are two versions of my song] ‘MIA’. It’s a singalong song that people still singalong to. Sometimes I’m sick of my own song.

‘Baked Apples’ is one of my favorites. It’s a dedication to my grandma. ‘I Do’ [is a song] I wrote for my brother’s wedding. I’ve been told I talk about life through the lens of other people’s experiences. My favorite songs are something I’ve shared with someone else.

Who are your musical influences?

Lash: I grew up listening to Blondie on road trips, and ‘I Am Woman’ by Helen Reddy, Meatloaf, Queen, Madonna. Do you like ’90s music? Then you’ll like my stuff. I love Freddie Mercury, and the theatrical nature of him carried into the way I present myself. I’m delving into a lot of Janis Joplin lately, she’s so naturally herself, and that’s what I’m trying to be more like now. There’s so much curation in today’s generation of musicians. I admire the ones with their own look. But I like the idea of being myself, and not wearing makeup on stage.

How would you say your Emerson experience helped you professionally and/or personally?

Lash: I loved Emerson, Emerson taught me so much. Basically, I learned – number one – to take opportunities even if they seem scary. I learned I could hold a full schedule functionally. Time management. I was working 9 to 5, and had class until 10:00 pm at night. I learned how to balance a budget by working in the Journalism Department. Getting that education was amazing.

Column writing with [former Associate Professor] Jeff Seglin was amazing, and I learned a lot from [former Journalism Department Chair] Ted Gup.

I’ve gone on to writing my own press releases, my own bios, researching contacts and then reaching out to them, and learned to get interviews with radio stations. I’ve had to organize interviews and coordinate seven people on one single day. I’m managing my band now.