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Product Naming Matters

  • Artikel

If you have to tell your customers how it say it, your product better be good. That's all I'm saying.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    April 28, 2006
    Good Point Heather. Since I know you are a die hard Apprentice fan there was one episode last season that illustrated this so well. Remember the challenge where the teams had to promote the movie "Zathura?" (An oh so memorable movie I might ad).

    One girl whos name I dont know and dont want to look up, couldnt even pronounce the title properly. How was she supposed to come off as believable if she couldnt pronounce the name of the movie.

    Companies pay lots of money for focus groups and reaserch for the right title, so if a title is hard to pronounce, it would come up there I am sure.
  • Anonymous
    April 28, 2006
    Yeah, plus, the should just spell it "whee!" like I do ; )
  • Anonymous
    April 28, 2006
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    April 28, 2006
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    April 28, 2006
  • "That's all I'm saying."

    LOL I love it. Very diplomatic way of puttting things.
  • Anonymous
    April 28, 2006
    Of course, a corollary could be:
    "If correctly pronouncing your product is a homonym for a common childish reference for a bio-break, your product better be fantastic"
  • Anonymous
    April 28, 2006
    Mel-I have to work at that...I dno't want to infer that we are the best product namers around or that I could come up with the perfect product name.

    Bill-yeah, that too!
  • Anonymous
    April 28, 2006
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  • Anonymous
    April 28, 2006
    I was expecting a more 'professional' opinion on the subject, the way you have put it, Heather, sounds a bit biased (especially since you are working in MS).

    I don't really like the name very much (I expected the name to be 'Go', after certain fakes surfacing all over the net) but I think people in general are just riding on the usual hateorade that comes everytime Nintendo does something. At least spanish speaking people pronounce it correctly, and that is no small feat.

    But yes, I can understand it's a word difficult to swallow for english speaking people. Maybe if it had been named 'pipí' or 'popó' (equivalent of wee and poop in Spanish), I may have the same opinion as you.

    Anyway, I find your blog interesting, keep posting!

    PS: Isn't it funny how the words the little kids use for their 'needs' are so similar in both languages?
  • Anonymous
    April 29, 2006
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  • Anonymous
    May 01, 2006
    Aguasefera-see my comment above stating that we aren't necessarily the best product namers around (trust me, I know!). As soon as they (marketring) start letting us staffing folks participate in the product naming process, I'll provide a more "professional" opinion. Until then, I am just an observer; one outside their target market at that!

    tod-I know....again, I draw your attention to my comment above. There is a difference between too many words and some hard to pronouce word thing.
  • Anonymous
    May 01, 2006
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  • Anonymous
    May 01, 2006
    Yes, I can explain. The product names are made up by US based product teams and they have nothing to do with the product itself. They are created for an audience that requires nothing evocative, they just need something short and memorable. You only think they are good because they are shorter than our looonnggg prodduct names. : )
  • Anonymous
    May 01, 2006
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  • Anonymous
    May 01, 2006
    I'm not saying our naming doesn't need improvement. I'm just saying that a bunch of unresearched, throw-it-out-to-see-if-it-sticks code names aren't the answer either. You miht not be the average consumer, Paul.
  • Anonymous
    May 02, 2006
    Ok. You got me there.  I'm definitely not average.

    Thought you'd be interested in what others are saying on the subject:

    http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2006/04/nintendo_forgot.html

    http://www.thetriforce.com/newblog/?p=609

    I guess if all buzz is good buzz, then maybe Nintendo is cleverer than all of us.  Just like the Yukon folks with their "write your own words to our lousy film" commercial.

  • Anonymous
    May 02, 2006
    Now you know I don't buy that "all buzz is good buzz" stuff. Bad buzz is bad and it lasts and it's expensive to overcome and it hurts your brand amnd makes you look bad and often, it's totally avoidable. Nothing good about that.

    Not that I am someone who is going to buy something Nintendo, ever. I'm trying to imagine some acceptable circumstances under which I would be buying this Wii thing and nope, just cannot come up with a single scenario.  
  • Anonymous
    May 03, 2006
    re: good vs bad buzz

    GM might disagree.  In recently announced results.  Tahoe (sorry, it wasn't Yukon -- I can't tell the difference anyway) sales in March were up 41% over February, and up 20% year over year.

    see: http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/News/articleId=109880

    They are painting their campaign as a success.  Of course, they could be deliberately using the fallacy of causation (a happened, then b happened, therefore a caused b).  A more likely cause of a sales spike is the fact that the 2007 model is a redesign and was just released.

    So, did they get bad buzz that they're able to portray as good and justify their stupidity ex post facto, or does it not matter that the buzz was bad?

    re: Wii.  So neither you, nor I, nor most of the posters on your blog are ever going to go Wii.  (My eyes keep fooling me into seeing WW1, which is probably an even worse association that a dog wii'ing on your sofa).  If we aren't the target market, is our opinion of whether the name works or not valid?

    I'm getting all philosophical and comtemplative today.  I think I'm going to have to slap myself.  *#$ @#^.   There, I'm better now.  Bad buzz is bad.  And, Wii belongs in the toilet.  Wow, I thought for a second I was turning into a mush-headed wimp.