atw: Re: SEC: UNCLASSIFIED Naming cars (WAS Offshoring: Don't shoot the messenger)
- From: "Michael Granat" <mgranat@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 11:31:49 +1000
It's called the Advertising Industry, Howard (S).
Although the clients often come up with their own.
(Remember that Mercedes was the name of Carl Benz's daughter.)
I was even asked to devise names for paint colours for the Holden
Camira.
Talking of dumb car names, take just these Holdens for example.
The:
Calais - Hey, lets name an Aussie car after a grubby French port town,
renowned for its organized crime.
Camira - some wind that choofs through Africa, I think.
(More like a belch of foul bluish-grey smoke from the wrong valve stem
seals used in the 1.6 litre engine.)
Caprice - A freakish whim.
Commodore - a naval commander theme for a road car?
Berlina? - after JFK's famous "Ich bin ein Berliner!" ("I am a large,
cream-filled doughnut") speech to the people of Berlin? Possibly
harking back to the car's German Opel heritage.
Barina? - Don't ask. Maybe a baby Berlina?
When GMH came up with the name for the Drover (a made in Japan,
sinking lion badged Suzuki Sierra 4WD with build quality that GMH
couldn't match) they wondered what to do with it.
Too many negative associations such as "Drover's dog".
So, I used "Drover" as a verb, turned the campaign into a branding
exercise, wrote the city launch jingle with Wilbur Wilde, the country
(square dance style) jingle with Mal Stainton and ended up with an all
media campaign that emphasized the vehicle's off road capabilities
with a theme of "Drover Everywhere".
As in the "Drover here, Drover there, Drover Everywhere" from
the TV jingle.
The campaign sold out every Drover in Australia in a month, Holden
couldn't get the supplies it needed from Japan, so the Suzuki dealers
with equivalent models (but not quite the same, as the Drover soft
top had a fold forward windscreen and canvas topped doors with
zippered canvas and plastic side windows) did not have to advertise
their Sierras for the next six months. Such was the sales overflow.
The campaign was actually "too successful" and Holden had to drop the
model due to ongoing supply issues and the exchange rate with the Yen!
So yes, you can be stuck with an odd product name but, in advertising,
it is how you make that name memorable (with positive associations)
that counts.
Let's face it, where on Earth did the brands "Kit Kat" and "Omo"
come from?
The minds of some advertising gurus, that's where!
Cheers,
Michael
Michael E. Granat
T/as Write Ideas
E-mail: mailto:writeideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Web: <http://home.pacific.net.au/~megranat/>
Without Prejudice.
E&OE.
-----Original Message-----
From: Silcock, Howard DR [mailto:Howard.Silcock@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: 26 August 2004 10:20
To: 'Austechwriter (E-mail)'
Subject: atw: SEC: UNCLASSIFIED Naming cars (WAS Offshoring: Don't shoot
the messenger)
Michael's post about car names reminded me of some questions I've often
thought of researching, when I've been sitting behind some stupidly-named=
car: Who chooses these names? Does each car manufacturer have a full-time=
employee whose job includes coming up with a series of meaningless but
important-sounding names? Or do they outsource the work? And, if so, what=
sort of companies do they outsource it to? And what qualifications do you=
need to do this kind of work? I wonder if there's a whole industry out th=
ere
whose existence I wasn't aware of.
=20 --------------------------------------------------
=20 Howard L. Silcock
=20 Technical Writer, EMS Program
=20 Information Systems Division
=20 (02) 626 69735 =20
=20 --------------------------------------------------
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