With Hyundai, Laphroaig and Skoda all running big-budget ad campaigns at the moment that seek to re-educate us on how to pronounce their names, Laura Weldon, Creative Director at Studio LWD, asks, is it a timely reminder to remember old school values when it comes to branding new companies?
There’s a line in the movie, The Social Network, where a character mockingly describes Napster founder Sean Parker’s “only” contribution to what was then called “The Facebook” as being to drop the “The” from the name.
Well personally, I think Mr Parker earned his billions with that bit of advice. Can you really imagine Facebook being a ubiquitous part of life across the globe if it was still called “The Facebook”?
Doesn’t exactly bounce off the tongue does it?
It seems such a basic, but a major pitfall I see so many new brands falling into is forgetting about simple pronounceability – or, more often, how well the name bounces within sentences as part of likely use.
You can spend hours in workshops ensuring a new brand represents what the company is about. And then, yes, the new brand name really sums up the company’s values. It looks great on paper and works really well with the funky logo idea. But is it fun to say? Or will people even know how to say it just by reading it?
Hyundai’s campaign running right now seeks to inform us we have been saying their name wrong all this time. Laphroaig Whisky’s current TV campaign takes a similar angle, while Skoda, more subtly, have simply but firmly started using the pronunciation Sch-koda in voice overs.
But, while these car brand names’ non-English origins have previously been anglicised and Laphroaig comes with hundreds of years of heritage, do you want your fledgling new brand to face the same challenges from the outset?
I don’t want to name and shame any mid-size or small brands that I have seen fall into the un-pronounceability trap, but I’m sure you can think of some. But it’s not just how pronounceable the name is in isolation. It’s about how well it “bounces” in use as part of everyday sentences. For a brand to be successful, this is really important.
Back in the heyday of branding, people never really thought about brand values and just came up with words that were fun to say. Like Coca-Cola.
Probably still the world’s most iconic brand, Coca-Cola is great “fun to say” in isolation. But there is also a reason why Coca-Cola later trademarked Coke too. Because have you ever heard anyone ask for a “whisky and Coca-Cola”?
That’s why we always go through an exercise of trying out a new brand in context in sentences where it might be used. “We need to get BRANDNAME on the phone!” “Could I get a BRANDNAME and tonic?” “Would it be possible to BRANDNAME it to me?” “Have you seen my BRANDNAME anywhere?” “Pass me the BRANDNAME.”
If your new name doesn’t bounce brilliantly in sentences that customers might use, you need to drop it and start again – no matter how on-point the messaging.
