part 3. how not to name a brand - nestle abdicated strategic thinking, 1st major failure

all marketing books, all marketing gurus and all marketing successes tell you that good strategic thinking is most key for any success in marketing. and the opposite, failed strategic thinking is the major cause of many marketing failures.


but strategic thinking applied to naming is what nestle abdicated when it decided to ask its advertising and internet audiences to name this product.


this lack of strategic thinking reeks in the names submitted by contestants and chosen as finalists. the names range from the ridiculous to the playful to nonsense to totally off-strategy. that’s not the fault of those who submitted the names. they thought of those names with the sole intent of winning the contest. and the ”best approach” to win a contest like this is to think of names that are attention getting and not necessarily strategic.

nestle’s product description :

"Imagine having the top three favorite fruity flavors (Melon, Watermelon and Orange) rolled into a convenient 750mL tub that sells for only P80 then making this Frozen Dessert the entire promo in itself. Introducing Nestle Give-Me-A-Name Frozen Dessert. It’s a refreshing new promo for a refreshing new desert the entire family will love! Try it and see for yourself.”

first, i don’t understand what they mean by “making this Frozen Dessert the entire promo in itself” and what that has to do with naming the brand. it goes on to say “It’s a refreshing new promo for a refreshing new dessert the entire family will love!” so now, it’s the promo?

is this about the ice cream product or the promo? is this for naming a promo or naming an ice cream product?

that portion was supposed to be a product description that the audience is supposed to use as input in naming the brand. the person (brand manager? account manager?) who wrote this probably thought it was very smart and cute to include that in the product description. it’s cute in that person’s mind, but it does not do nor contribute anything to the task of explaining a product description.

consumers don’t eat promos, they eat ice cream. the whole idea is supposed to name an ice cream product, not a promo. the person who did this is very confused as to what the whole point of the effort is. and in the process, those reading it, the ones who will give suggestions for the brand name may have been confused as well.

instead of putting in pa-cute things like “this Frozen Dessert is the entire promo in itself”, they should have instead put descriptions of the three flavors. while this was mentioned in the tc commercial at the intro to the website, there were no descriptions on the kind of melon taste, the kind of watermelon taste and the kind of orange taste. things like what it will feel in the palette and how it will feel inside the mouth. the tv commercial mentions "yummy melon", "cool orange" and "refreshing watermelon".

aside from the physical or palette signals, state the emotions that the product will deliver to the eater. there must have been a reason why they chose these specific flavors. they chose these flavors because they wanted to create a unique and specific product experience. what are these product experiences?

and the most important part - why did they choose three flavors in one product? they must have found something unique and compelling in that. including that in the product description would have served them more rather than the pa-cute line on “making the frozen desert the entire promo itself” that is totally meaningless, confusing and does not contribute to the project.

there’s a lot of difficulty in trying to understand why that reference to the promo is included in a section with a title that said ”product description”. though shown in the tv commercial played when you open the website, they failed to mention texture, color and how the three flavors will be placed inside the tub (three equal triangle shapes? circles? all mixed up?).


to be continued….


nestle’s website: http://givemeaname.ph/