What’s in a name?
Pop vs soda vs Coke?
I say soda, you may call it pop, and others may use the brand name Coke for any old fizzy type drink. Sofa, couch. Sneakers, tennis shoes. Knit cap, toboggan (yeah, that was a head scratcher when we first heard it used). Same product, different name. Doesn’t sound important except when it can cause some confusion when discussing a marketing initiative.
We’ve seen this often and the best way to ensure you know what your client wants is to clarify and not make assumptions. Here are the most often multi-meaning words or phrases we’ve come across:
Focus group. When what they meant was some type of consumer-based research (sorry if this imploded the heads of our researcher friends).
Survey. When they just meant interviewing people (and the researchers are melting).
Brand. This can sometimes mean a logo or a visual identity. We hear this from clients and actually most agencies. What they typically don’t mean is a Brand Platform. All quite different.
Marketing Plan. It could mean internal, external, both, or really anything. We’ve even seen it being used for a business plan.
Awareness. Usually they mean perception. Both are important- just different.
Confusion isn’t bad
And although this may cause some confusion until the true intent is figured out, it’s not all bad. In fact, we love the creative side of being able to call something by different names and maybe even use it to invent a totally new way of seeing things.
Most recently we saw this with a friend saying our brand platform can also be called a culture audit or culture report. That it improves culture within an organization because we look at the brand from the internal and external views and then write and implement the brand which includes mission, vision, and values, among others. It’s the true definition of who they are and it shows where the brand needs to be expressed as well as where it should be better aligned. Cool! We like different names for what we do so it can appeal to more people, but also have them take pause and see the value of a brand platform from a different perspective.
What are you doing that could be named something else and appeal to a whole new group of people?