How to name products in line with marketing

How to name products in line with marketing

There is no template to follow when naming products. Unlike copywriting creativity, product naming creativity requires a lot of imagination. Only when the product is named with a good name, can subsequent references in the same series be extended based on the creative naming of the first series of products.

Naming new products is an important part of marketing. When companies with different cultural backgrounds name new products, their internal logics are very different, their naming basis is different, and product names also have many differences. Big difference. The following introduces two major tips for naming new products for reference!

If the name of the first-generation product is not good, re-name it suitable for Internet promotion, with a good sense of language, it is best to have The picture is beautiful and reflects the spirit of craftsmanship. The current name is not in line with the times and is not suitable for promotion, so it is necessary to re-create a product name that is suitable for marketing.

Product naming should be in line with marketing

Naming children reflects the cultural heritage of parents. For example, intellectuals often use uncommon words when naming their children; children from rural families name boys. Fu, Cai, Gui, Kang, etc. are often used, while girls like to use Mei, Fen, Ting, etc. Parents place their own expectations in naming their children, and companies are more willing to enhance their appearance when naming, such as naming Lenovo, Mengniu, Guangming, Founder, Shuanghui, Sanlu, Geely, Baidu, Reebok, Huiyuan, etc.

Some company names themselves are worth savoring, such as Alibaba, BYD, Victor, 360, 361 Degrees, Tencent, etc. There are also some strange names, such as Wahaha, Life No. 1, Melatonin, etc. Next, companies have to name their products. You can look at the names of cars on the market, such as Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Lexus, Corolla, Yueda, Chevrolet, Grand Hyatt, Regal, etc. Automobile companies are very particular about naming different brands, rather than relying on their feelings.

German car brands are named after industrialized routines, such as Audi's A4, A6, and A8, BMW's 3 Series, 5 Series, and 7 Series, and Mercedes' C, E, S, etc. The United States is similar to Japan in using neutral independent names and symbolic names in car brand naming. For example, Cadillac is a neutral name, and Ford Eagle is a symbolic name. Most Japanese cars use neutral names. When naming their products, Chinese automobile companies sometimes imitate Americans, Japanese, and sometimes Germans. For example, there are BYD's F3, F0, M6, and G3, as well as Safer, Harvard, Great Wall, Yueda, Ruifeng, etc.

The logical basis for Germans to name car brand series is that consumers in industrial civilization can purchase vehicles that suit their identity, status, and location according to their own circumstances. Therefore, the series naming is designed to reflect the level of the product: the 7 Series is higher than the 5 Series, and the S is higher than the E. This naming method is more likely to succeed in the luxury car market. People who are willing to express their identity and have financial foundation buy A8, 7 Series, and S. If the brand is strong, consumers with limited financial conditions will also recognize A4 as Audi's entry-level car and 3 Series as BMW's entry-level car. The Mercedes-Benz is the entry-level car.

When the brand appeal is weak, names with good associations should be used, such as Liwei, Benben, QQ, Son of the East, etc. The purpose of using beautiful association naming is to shorten the distance with consumers through vocabulary association and win consumers' quick understanding. Jingyi's success should be related to this naming method.

Product naming should be in line with product marketing. Naming should generate positive associations

Product naming itself is a kind of communication, and the customer group’s quick and instinctive associations and reactions should be positively recognized and have a positive impact on communication. The understanding of the content should also be unified, and it is not easy to do this. Let's take a look at Apple's naming of its products. In 2002, Sony was the market leader in players for at least 10 years. When Apple entered this space, it faced the decision of what name to adopt. The company submitted four name suggestions internally, namely super MP3, 21's music, beyond enjoy, and iPod.

The first name did not go beyond the scope of competing products and tried to use the name to flaunt its super status. , not available.

The second name has a sense of the times, and has transcended competition and entered the space of the music field. However, it is still a slogan and cannot immediately make consumers recognize you as a representative of music in the 21st century. The third name has a bit of a feeling that it enters the level of entertainment, which is considered to be from the perspective of consumers.

It can inspire consumers to identify with entertainment in terms of use, allowing them to make quick decisions and make emotional purchases, but it does not have scalability. This name demarcates the boundary of the user group, which is mainly entertainment, which is not conducive to attracting people who pursue efficiency, and is not suitable for rational people's choices. Giving away entertainment has never been the social orientation promoted by American religion. The fourth name transcends the first three and is completely unknown to the listener.

In this way, companies can change the part of speech and meaning of iPod as the times change. At the same time, the impact of a product on consumers and the market is not restricted by the name and has no upper limit. At the beginning, Apple's internal opinions were very inconsistent: the opinions from the technology department tended to be the first, and the opinions from the marketing department tended to be the third. Only Jobs's consciousness was very clear, and that was the iPod.

Jobs has always had his own unique insights on product naming. The early generation of computers called Macintosh was named after an Apple. However, the local industrial and commercial department did not allow electronic products to be registered with the actual Apple name, so the letters were changed to achieve their wish. When it came to launching high-end products, Jobs went against common sense and must use the name Lisa (this is the name that many parents in the United States give their daughters. In reality, Jobs did give his daughter this name) , and also required that the second generation computers also use this name. His reason is that consumers don't care about product sequences, nor do they care about the bluffing terms and nouns advertised by technicians. His ideas are super forward-thinking.

Product naming and electronic product naming case analysis

In fact, when it comes to naming electronic products, Apple is almost the father of concise naming. So much so that later, major electronic manufacturers have discovered that this concise naming method is actually very beneficial to product promotion and the cultivation of loyal users.

So let’s first take a look at how electronic product giants other than Apple or former giants name their products.

Nokia/Nokia product naming

Nokia is about to make a strong comeback. Many people may have been waiting for it for a long time. First, let’s take a look at the naming of Nokia products.

Starting with the classic Nokia 1000 and followed by a long list of four-digit models.

Including the later N series until the N97, which was completely submerged by the iOS and Android tide.

After that, there is an unknown naming method of letters plus a single number, similar to N9 C5.

Then I finally started to learn from Apple and launched its own mobile phone sub-brand Lumia, but the naming was still cheating.

Lumia 720 920.

The naming is also completely irregular.

Sony/Sony product naming

Mobile phone: Xperia L39h L50w L36h

Player: Z1050 D50 D100

Headphones: XBA-H1 H2 H3 XBA-A1 A2 A3 EX-1000 MDR-1R

(Only a very small part is listed here.)

Samsung/Samsung product naming

Let’s not talk about the Galaxy series and Note series. These are products that only appeared after Apple-style naming.

I vaguely remember that Samsung’s product names used to be all in the form of letters + numbers, and the numbers were also long, usually four digits.

Then let’s take a look at Apple’s product naming that emerged from the iPod.

iPod shuffle 1-6 generations

iPod nano 1-7 generations

iPod classic 1-3 generations

iPod Touch 1- 5th generation

(I won’t talk about iPod Video and iPod mini.)

iMac

MacBook Pro / MacBook Air

iPhone / iPhone 3G / iPhone 3GS

iPhone 4 / iPhone 4S

iPhone 5 / iPhone 5s / iPhone 5c

iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus

iPad / iPad 2 / the New iPad(3) / the New iPad (4)

iPad Air / iPad Air 2 < /p>

iPad mini / iPad mini 2 / iPad mini 3

Now, I wonder if the questioner still thinks Apple’s naming is confusing?

Apple did it A pioneering work in the field of electronic product naming, that is, what is our product and what is its name?

Before this, Sony had different sub-brands for different product lines, similar to Walkman, but if you don’t want to buy one, you don’t know what these sub-brands mean.

But Apple’s products are different. From MacBook, iPhone, iPad and iPod, you can tell what these products are at first glance. This plays a very important role in simplifying naming.

Secondly, Apple’s own product line is very streamlined. Compared with other companies, which often have hundreds of products, or even products like Sony’s Dafa, where the entire product line adds up to hundreds of products, Apple’s products are on sale at the same time. There are no more than 20 models in total.

That’s why everyone can count all the products in Apple’s iPad and iPhone product lines so easily.

Use serial naming with caution when naming products

Let’s take a look at the naming of Intel CPUs. In the early days, Intel used product functions to name its products. There were 80,286 integrated electronic devices called 286, then 386, 486, 586, and finally 686. In fact, the number of electronic devices has long exceeded six digits, and it is not allowed by legislation. After continuing to use numbers to name products, Intel reluctantly adopted Latin naming. Pente means "five" in Greek, and ium added after it means "generalized vocabulary" in Greece. When translated into Chinese, it should be the fifth generation processor. But in China it must be given a sentimental name - Pentium.

This name has achieved great success in China, and in the United States, Pentium has also helped Intel's products win a reputation in the market. The next naming makes sense. "Core" is a typical Chinese name. Looking at the English name of Google, Google evolved from a vocabulary, which means the amount of gigabytes. After translating it into Chinese, you must find a meaningful vocabulary.

Let’s analyze Microsoft’s naming development process. In the early days, it was called window (that is, Windows). This name was indeed recognized by users. The computer screen is just like a window, conveying unlimited information and graphics. Microsoft later began to use serial number naming, and Windows versions 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 95, 2000, xp, etc. were released successively. Using time series to name products gives consumers the impression that later products are better than early ones. This means that when later products appear on the market, early products will definitely be eliminated by consumers. Who wants the old products from earlier times? ah.

Let’s take another look at the serial naming of Apple mobile phones: iPhone 2 was discontinued after the release of iPhone 3, and the launch of iPhone 4 ended the iPhone 3 product line. Apple's next mobile phone should not be called iPhone 5. Because Apple wants to retain the iPhone 4 product line, "iPhone 5" must adopt a new name. It is said to be called Aurora. This means that Apple believes that iPhone 4 is a relatively mature product, and cannot use new products to crowd out the previous profitable product, and cannot let consumers think that the previous product is old. Microsoft also wanted to change this, so it released Vista, hoping that XP could coexist with Vista in the future to meet customer groups with different needs.

Let’s look at Korean cars again. After the first generation of Sonata was released, they also used the naming of 1.0 and 2.0 for their own products. They have no idea why it is named this way, nor do they know that naming it this way means that the previous generation will be discontinued. As a result, its old products had to be discontinued before the investment in them was fully recouped - while consumers waited for new products.

How did Lenovo name its products? After acquiring IBM’s personal computer business, there is nothing wrong with continuing to use ThinkPad, but it is also part of the brand. Not long ago, Lenovo named its new tablet computer Lepad and its new smartphone Lefeng. Do you know what the market impact of such a name is? What are the expectations of such a name? Is it a good thing or a bad thing to be reminded of imitation? Which consumers will have a good impression of you because you are an imitator of a famous brand? Which consumers will have a good impression of you because you are an imitator of a famous brand? Will it give you a bad impression because you imitate other people's names? In your expectations, you can decide which strategy to adopt according to the type of people your product's target customers are.

Or there are no expected customers at all, as long as someone buys. If ants do not have a foraging rule before setting off, then the ant species will also die. If the rules change, the quality of survival of the species will continue to decline, and it will eventually perish. Human ability is to preset goals and find the rules, ways and methods to achieve them, rather than simply imitating them.