Of Novas & Manatees

...and unintended messages.

Not trying to be alarmist here, but advertising can be dangerous.

The danger lies in sending out so many messages, each designed to elicit good feelings, goodwill, and great sales, that cut across so many societal and cultural boundaries. It’s true our world is shrinking, and culture is more unified than ever before. But still, the risk of crossed messages and misunderstandings increases with every campaign.

You’ve probably heard of General Motors' giant misstep back in the ’60s, when they introduced their popular muscle car, the Chevy Nova, to Latin America. If you haven’t heard the story, we can sum it up quickly, and leave it to you to surmise what their Nova sales were like, south of the border...

“No-va,” in Spanish, means “No go.”

The Nova story is one of the great cautionary tales in marketing, and we’d be happy to believe that all our peers have learned from it, and such an avoidable mistake can never happen again.

Sigh.

Target has recently introduced a line of plus-sized dresses. One of them comes in a particular shade of gray. A similar dress, available in standard sizes, names that same exact hue, “Dark Heather Gray.” For the plus-sized dress, however, it’s advertised as “Manatee Gray.”

To Target’s credit, they’ve moved quickly to correct the problem, and to apologize to their customers. They blame the mistake on a couple of buyers who simply didn’t communicate with each other.

Fair enough. Lack of communication, internal and otherwise, is an eternal challenge. Good for Target for recognzing that, and (hopefully) moving to alleviate it.

Still, couldn’t this have been prevented? Couldn’t just one Target employee — just one — have looked at that color description, and sent up a warning of bad things to come? Similarly, we’ve always wondered, wasn’t there just one GM exec with primary-school Spanish skills?

Is there a lesson here? There sure is.

Every marketing endeavor, every customer communication, should be put in front of as many eyes as possible, internally, before going external. And the question should be asked — not just "Ain’t this creative? Aren’t we swell?” But also, “Think hard. Do you see any way possible this can come back to bite us on the butt?”

The C4:

1. Target had a no-good, very-bad week, when they used “plus-sized” and “manatee” in the same sentence. We won’t pile on. Target is a great retailer, offering sweetly priced fashion for every body type. They made a mistake, and they moved to correct it. Target shoppers, we urge you to give ’em a second chance.
    
2. The good news is, second chances are earned because such mistakes rarely happen twice. Chevrolet renamed their export Nova “Caribe,” and it sold great. Target will probably now review every word in their marketing vocabulary for sensitivity and unintended impact. As well they should.
    
3. Even better news: we can all learn from Target’s example, and avoid such headaches for ourselves.
    
4. Always remember this: Your marketing material is going to be seen by diverse people, with diverse backgrounds, and infinitely diverse perspectives. Every word and every image you put in front of them is going to be filtered through those lenses. Once your words are published, it’s probably too late. You’re self-saving window of opportunity, then, is narrow indeed. By all means, use it.

The Name of the Game

Pretend it's your baby.

Building your brand starts the moment you start building your company. The decisions you make as you plan, create and launch a new business will inevitably have long-lasting impact on your long-term success.

And perhaps the most consequential of those decisions is a deceptively simple one: just what are you going to call this new company?

Resist the urge to rush that decision. And resist the urge for self-indulgence. Naming the company after yourself, or your kids, or some meaningless word that sounds nice to your ears — there have been plenty of entrepreneurs who’ve managed to make this work. But there have been plenty more who’ve tried it and failed.

Your first consideration in naming your company is the one that should inform all your decision making: what does this mean for my customers? To answer that, you must know your customers, or at least know the type of customer you’ll be targeting. If you sell to a staid, conservative crowd, then one of those edgy, modern monikers — think Tumblr, Skype and Etsy — probably won’t win them over.

Speaking of pronunciation, how does it sound spoken aloud? How does it look on a letterhead? Will lazy tongues or unfamiliar typefaces change its meaning? There’s an unfortunately high possibility of brand damage here. You must anticipate and mitigate it.

Finally, can you trademark your name and buy a suitable Web domain? You might eventually retain a trademark attorney, but why not just start with a Google search? See what companies are out there with similar names, and try to anticipate consumer confusion that might result. And do a search for available domain names, but be warned: there are “domain squatters” out there who specialize in buying up dot-com names based on others’ searches, only to sell them back later at exorbitant costs.

Try to settle on a name that makes sense to your customers, that tells them in an instant who you are, what you offer and why you’re the best at it. Choose a name upon which you can hang the entirety of your marketing program — because that’s exactly what you’re about to do.

The C4:

1. Choosing a company name is the entrepreneur’s single most important marketing decision. Success depends upon treating that decision with that level of seriousness.
2. Don’t rush it and don’t take it as an opportunity to pat yourself on the back. Do look for names that speak directly to the kind of customer you want to attract.
3. Anticipate trademark and Web domain issues, as well as every nuance in how the name will sound aloud and appear on the page and screen.
4. Create a marketing program that starts with that carefully considered, ultimately perfect name…then build your dream from there.