All right or so wrong? Some thoughts on "correct-vertising"
Some names are just tricky to say. I've had times when I've known someone for years, gone past the stage where it's appropriate to ask how their name's pronounced, and just avoided ever saying it. "Hey just wanted to introduce you to someone who's amazing at archery." (!)
The same goes for brand names. You see the name repeatedly and might initially try to say it in your head (or even out loud) to get the feel of it. Sometimes you're satisfied that it’s spot on. Sometimes you give up. I did that with Arc'teryx (assumed "Arse-a-terrix" but really wasn't sure). Then I met someone who worked in their Hong Kong Marketing team and they laughed, unfazed, when I asked them how to say the brand name. They said, "It's Ark-tare-icks. People in Canada (where the brand is from) don't know how to say it, so what hope do Hong Kongers have...?!" A few years later, I came across the brand again and realised I'd forgotten how to pronounce it. A quick online search threw up a host of pronunciation tutorials which, comically, don't agree with each other. Compare https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=McIrK1inzSk with https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yOXX9GqhCWc and you might be as confused as I am...
It got me thinking - does it matter? Does anyone care? Should the brand be educating us about it?
Well, some brands do just that.
Hyundai recently took to the screens to give the UK public a lesson on how not to anglicise their name which, in fact, should be "Hyun-day". https://youtu.be/8peKcSEDFB4. I had 2 reactions to this particular correct-vertising - 1) An initial inner-laugh at the shop names resulting in the mispronunciation, 2) A semi-snarl at the smugness of the correct pronunciation's delivery. YouGov research shows that the campaign drove the brand up a massive 13.3 percentage points on its Brand Index from 5.4 to 18.7 (we'll get into the Brand Index thing another time!), whilst an online poll hosted by Twitter/X user Gav Richards (@gav) found that 76.5% of respondents would not change the way they said Hyundai in light of the ads (those pesky consumers!). And why's that I wonder? Because the British public (and people in general?) don't like being told what to do; or feeling patronised?
There's a psychological phenomenon called 'Spaced Repetition' at play here, which might be the defining argument in favour of correct-vertising. It's the simple, everyday technique of repeating something to yourself a few times in order to have a better chance of remembering it - like meeting a new person or remembering 6 peoples' drinks orders at the bar. And the 'spaced' part of Spaced Repetition refers to the research finding that you're more likely to remember something for longer if you leave pauses in your repetition of it. So correct-vertising taps into this repetition psychology by indirectly encouraging you to repeat the brand name (in your head or out loud); and lodging it into your memory like an evil pantomime villain. Mwahahaha! For more on that, take a look at https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/living-mild-cognitive-impairment/201403/spaced-repetition
Another automotive example is Audi. With people mispronouncing the name so often, the brand released an official statement to correct-vertise it. Audi of America Vice President of Marketing Loren Angelo said, ”Since Audi is so close to the word 'audio,' we often hear our name pronounced 'aw-dee,' but to set the record straight, the official pronunciation is 'ow-dee' similar to 'howdy' or 'outie' like the belly button!”
Allianz took it one step further and correct-vertised their pronunciation via billboards with a little twist. I find something slightly endearing about a big corporate behaving in a kind of basic way with these huge quote marks. And this definitely plays to the idea of repetition psychology. But there’s also a fine line between endearing and condescending.
Apart from repetition psychology, helping people to say your brand name correctly might help with word-of-mouth. If I'd bought something from Arc'teryx and someone asked me where I got it, I'd probably say something like "that outdoor-wear company that sounds something like arse terric", or I might just say I forgot, or show them the label - to avoid the bother of bringing up the pronunciation. Either way, the word-of-mouth effect probably wouldn't be as strong as if I just said "I got it from North Face."
I wonder – does this go deeper? Are people less likely to buy a brand just because its name is difficult to pronounce? The thoroughly-researched principles of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science and How Brand Grow have shown us the importance of Mental Availability when it comes to brand growth - and surely mental availability is much harder to achieve if you don't know how the brand is pronounced?! Let's see what Jenni Romaniuk thinks about that.
Personally, when I look at this list of hard-to-pronounce brand names from Complex.com (https://www.complex.com/style/a/nick-grant/10-brand-names-you-should-know-how-to-pronounce), I do feel a slight annoyance and wonder why they didn't choose a simpler name in the first place to make the brand more mentally available! Maybe they didn't consider that – or maybe they cleverly wanted people to repeat the name and to actively research how to say it in order to gain a cunning memorability advantage...hmmm.