People have a tendency to ‘hang on’ to things well past their prime. Go take a glance at your attic if you need a reminder. Maybe it is out of comfort, convenience, or fear of the unknown. Regardless of the reason, our fast-paced society often has real difficulty in discarding things.
As brand consultants we see glaring examples of this in, of all places, product naming. To be sure, a quick scan of the media and entertainment landscape is replete with examples of names that people tend to ’stick with’ - names that may in fact need to be put out to pasture.
Consider High Speed Internet. In a hugely competitive marketplace, cable operators (Charter Communications) and satellite companies (Direct TV) alike, offer Internet services as part of their normal product bundles, and market them based on price and speed. The question here is – if every provider is vying for the fastest Internet, and speeds are getting faster every day, is it necessary to continue to refer to the Internet in terms of high speed, as in High Speed Internet or High Speed Data? From a distance, it seems a somewhat redundant brand attribute to highlight within the echelon of selling benefits. For the same reason, one would probably not describe an Indy car as ‘fast’ to a friend — Indy car tells the whole story, right?
How about the fact that the music industry still hands out awards each year at the GRAMMYS based on "Record of the Year" and "Album of The Year", yet most teenage consumers have never purchased either. In this case, the name is a convention and as long as consumers ‘get it’, it probably is not worth investing in new nomenclature.
And why do we still use the term wireless? At one point in time, ‘wireless’ was a breakthrough concept and spoke chiefly to how digital information was transmitted from tower to tower and then on to a device. But now, as wireless is a common part of our routine, and as the platform is capable of delivering more and more services, maybe next generation product names should be more linked to communicating a higher order of benefits? Take for example Virgin Mobile, who by going to market as ‘mobile’ versus ‘wireless’, can better focus the discussion with consumers on lifestyle benefits like independence, choice and control - A smart approach that is relevant to consumer needs.
If this interests you, take a look around and you’ll find a panoply of "dated" names that might need to be nudged off the stage. If you see one, let us know and maybe we can help arrange for its very comfortable, if not overdue, retirement.
