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Why using a brand nickname in marketing is not a good idea

Nickname branding is actually detrimental to brand performance. This is because brand nicknames are usually given by consumers.

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Researchers from Western University, Stockton University, and University of Massachusetts Amherst published a new Journal of Marketing article that examines if firms benefit from adopting popular nicknames in their branding efforts. 

The study, titled “BMW is Powerful, Beemer is Not: Nickname Branding Impairs Brand Performance”, is authored by Zhe Zhang, Ning Ye, and Matthew Thomson. 

Many brands have popular nicknames that have become a part of daily conversations. BMW is commonly referred to as Beemer, Bloomingdale’s as Bloomie’s, Rolex as Rollie, Walmart as WallyWorld, and Starbucks as Starbies.

Given their popularity, some marketers have embraced these names in their own branding efforts. For instance, in 2021, Bloomingdale’s officially adopted “Bloomie’s” for its new store in Fairfax, Virginia; Target launched a style campaign in 2018 with the tagline “Fall for Tarzhay All Over Again;” and the Howard Johnson hotel chain slogan goes “Go Happy. Go HoJo.”

Do firms actually benefit from adopting popular nicknames in their branding efforts? This new study finds that nickname branding is actually detrimental to brand performance. This is because brand nicknames are usually given by consumers.

Zhang explains that “accepting a consumer-generated nickname suggests that a brand implicitly admits that consumers are ‘in charge’ and that they publicly accept and promote an altered identity bestowed by consumers. When a brand starts to accept and even adopt a nickname given by consumers, it makes the brand seem less powerful.”

Nickname Use by Customers Versus Nickname Use by Marketers

Many brands closely follow consumers’ language use, especially on social media. However, the purpose of this monitoring should be to generate insights, not to mechanically repeat what consumers say. Brand nicknames are indeed terms of endearment, but only when they are used by the right person (i.e., consumers). When used by marketers, nicknames do not bring consumers closer to the brand. In fact, copying what might be construed as consumers’ “intellectual property” makes the brand appear weak.

Marketers should recognize that there is a difference between a consumer using a nickname and companies using that nickname for branding. The research team says that because consumer nickname use does not signal that a brand submits to consumer influence, it is less likely to weaken perceptions of brand power. In fact, prior research has shown that brand nicknames may lead to desirable consequences when they are used by consumers. “Marketers should recognize the differences in nickname use by consumers versus by marketers,” says Thomson. “While one may want to avoid adopting a nickname for marketing, nickname use within the consumer community should not be discouraged.”

In addition, brands must carefully evaluate their brand stereotype (i.e., competent vs. warm) and message type (transactional vs. communal) before adopting a nickname. It seems plausible that some brands may benefit from using their nicknames under certain conditions. For example, when a small-town, family-owned restaurant adopts a popular nickname given by the locals for fundraising for the community library, people may not necessarily feel it is inappropriate because the business was not meant to be powerful and its motive is to benefit the community. Instead, the nickname may become an emotional tie that activates consumers’ community identity and could attract more donations for the local community.

Furthermore, it is important for marketers to evaluate the meaningfulness of their brand name change. For example, Apple Computer became Apple, IHOP temporarily became IHOb, and Dunkin’ Donuts became Dunkin’. These were meaningful name changes and part of the brands’ repositioning strategies. The new names clearly tell consumers what the brand wants to be: Apple offers more than personal computers, Dunkin’ offers more than just donuts, and IHOb burgers should be taken seriously. These are internally initiated alterations that signal the brand’s new identity and market position, unlike nickname branding activities that are initiated externally.

Thomson says that “if nickname branding is not accompanied by substantial changes to the brand’s core identity, it may appear to be a relatively superficial effort to flatter consumers.” For example, Radioshack’s adoption of a nickname (e.g., tagline: “Our friends call us the Shack”) was a high-profile example of explicitly submitting to consumer influence and credited with hastening the company’s trajectory towards bankruptcy.

Lessons for Chief Marketing Officers

  • Marketers need to be careful about appropriating consumers’ language.
  • Marketers should recognize the difference between consumer nickname use versus nickname branding. For example, when General Motors banned the use of the “Chevy” nickname within the organization in 2010, the company received enormous criticism for not being consumer-oriented. However, critics overlooked the fact that the policy was meant to reduce the internal use of the nickname (e.g., when a salesperson talks to consumers) and not to stop consumers from using it externally.
  • Some brands may benefit from using their nicknames under certain conditions.
  • Renaming a brand may be necessary as a brand grows. However, if nickname branding is not accompanied by substantial changes to the brand’s core identity, it may appear to be a superficial effort to flatter consumers.

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Women more likely to choose wine with feminine labels

The more strongly the participants identified with other women, a phenomenon called “in-group identification,” the greater this effect was. A feminine label also influenced their expectation that they would like the wine better.

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To appeal to the majority of consumers, winemakers may want to pay as much attention to what’s on the bottle as what’s in it.

A three-part experimental study led by Washington State University researchers found that women were more inclined to purchase wine that had labels with feminine gender cues. The more strongly the participants identified with other women, a phenomenon called “in-group identification,” the greater this effect was. A feminine label also influenced their expectation that they would like the wine better.

With women representing 59% of U.S. wine consumers, the male-dominated field of winemaking might want to pay attention to the perceptions of this understudied group, said Ruiying Cai, lead author of the paper in the International Journal of Hospitality Management.  

“When you look at the market segments, women are actually purchasing a lot of wine. They are a large group,” said Cai, an assistant professor with WSU’s Carson College of Business. “We found that feminine cues speak to women consumers. They have more favorable attitudes toward the label and the wine itself. They were also expecting their overall sensory experience to be better, and they were more likely to purchase the wine.”

Gender cues often rely on stereotypes, and in initial tests for this research, a group of 90 women rated wine labels as more masculine when they featured rugged animals like wolves and stags as well as portraits of men. They designated labels as feminine that had cute animals, flowers and female portraits. Labels with castles and bunches of grapes were seen as neutral.

In two online experiments, a total of 324 women were shown fictitious wines with labels designed with these gendered cues. The participants showed higher intention to buy wines with a feminine label, such as a woman holding flowers, as opposed to a wine with a masculine label, such as a bulldog in a spiked collar. When asked about the expected sensory experience, they rated their liking of every sensory aspect higher, including the color, taste, aroma and aftertaste.

The participant’s level of wine expertise moderated their taste expectations but surprisingly, not their purchase intentions.

“Whether they were knowledgeable or less knowledgeable about wine, when they saw those feminine cues, they had a higher intention to buy the wine. The gender cue influence was so strong, it trumped the effect of that knowledge,” said co-author Christina Chi, a professor at WSU’s Carson College of Business.

A third experiment with another set of 138 women involved a taste test—also with a surprising finding. Researchers gave bottles of the same red wine with one of the gendered labels. More women who tasted the feminine-labeled wine ranked it higher in fruit flavors such as red current and blueberry than those who tasted the same wine with a masculine-cued label—and despite the fact those flavors were not dominant components in that particular wine. Women connected more mineral flavors with the masculine-labelled wine.

However, the participants who tasted the feminine-labelled wine reported liking it less than the women who tasted the masculine-labelled wines. The authors said this could be a result of the incongruence between the expected flavor influenced by the feminine label and the actual taste of the wine sample, which had a medium body, tannin and alcohol level.

Few studies have focused on the perceptions of women wine consumers in a field where 82% of the winemakers are men. That lack of perspective is very apparent on wine aisles, said Chi, noting that many vintners seem to favor masculine imagery like stallions, bulls and roosters–and one brand even features a prisoner in a jail cell.

“When designing the labels, winemakers should involve more women in the process, and it’s highly advisable to pilot test the labels among consumers for gender cues,” she said.

In addition to Cai and Chi, co-authors on this study include recent WSU graduate Demi Deng now at Auburn University and Robert Harrington of WSU.

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The tourism industry’s path to success lies in ethical labor practices

“With customers becoming more socially conscious, it is both a moral obligation and a smart business move for the sector to tackle these deep-rooted issues before it’s too late.”

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Addressing poor working conditions and human rights violations in the tourism sector isn’t just ethical – it also makes good business sense, according to a report by researchers at the University of Surrey. 

Commissioned by the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) and IUF, the report examines the S in ESG (environmental, social, and governance) trends, risks, and opportunities in the travel and tourism industry, which employs 290 million people worldwide. Despite this reach, workers in the sector, especially the sector’s most vulnerable workers – women, migrants and those in undeclared roles – are at high risk of exploitation. 

Dr Anke Winchenbach, lead author from Surrey Business School, University of Surrey, said: “Sadly, the travel and tourism sector continues to be plagued by poor pay, unsafe working conditions, and, in some cases, modern slavery. Enforcement is often weak or absent, even where laws exist to protect workers. 

“With ESG reporting increasingly becoming mandatory, businesses and governments who ignore social risks will not only face legal compliance issues but also lose out on attracting talent and business and investment opportunities in the future.  

“With customers becoming more socially conscious, it is both a moral obligation and a smart business move for the sector to tackle these deep-rooted issues before it’s too late.” 

The report offers seven recommendations to help businesses, governments, investors, and unions create a more sustainable future for the industry: 

  • Set up partnerships that include different groups and have clear rules, laws, and ways to ensure they’re followed. 
  • Improve access to unions and trusted experts in labour and human rights. 
  • Carry out assessments to identify the most important labour and human rights issues. 
  • Create policies with clear goals to improve working conditions. 
  • Use reliable measurements, involve employees in gathering data, and be open about the results. 
  • Consider both the direct impacts and those in the supply chain. 
  • Share progress openly to build trust and accountability. 

The report is based on a comprehensive literature review and 29 in-depth interviews with industry leaders, global trade unions, and financial experts. The research team also analysed four key frameworks – European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), UN Tourism’s Statistical Framework, the Global Sustainable Tourism Council Criteria, and the World Benchmarking Alliance, to identify the most pressing risks and opportunities for improving labour and human rights in travel and tourism. 

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Buy your groceries online? Watch out for this food labeling gap

The absence of accessible food labeling has tangible consequences for public health.

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Picture this: You’re shopping online for this week’s groceries. You try to pick healthy options based on the information provided by the online retailer. You can tell that the products you’re choosing are organic, non-GMO, or Fair Trade Certified. But in many cases, you can’t find the nutrition facts, ingredient list, or even a list of allergens.

A new study of online grocery retailers shows this problem is pervasive, to the detriment of public health and safety in the US The study, led by researchers at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University and published in Public Health Nutrition, shows a lack of present, accessible, and legible information about the food consumers buy, while marketing claims are still prominent. The absence of accessible food labeling has tangible consequences for public health, said Julia Sharib, first author on the study and manager of research and communications for the Food is Medicine Institute at the Friedman School.

“The government has clearly intended that you should be able to know certain things about your food,” said Sean Cash, Bergstrom Foundation Professor in Global Nutrition at the Friedman School and senior author on the study. “The way we’ve regulated that in the United States is to put that information on the packaging. But that hasn’t carried over to online spaces very well.”

A Lack of Information

Cash and researchers at the Friedman School and New York University (NYU) first identified the lack of accessible food labeling among online retailers in a 2022 pilot study of 10 food products across nine online grocery retailers. That study found that information required by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) about food, such as nutrition facts, an ingredient list, and an allergen list were often absent, and were less present than marketing claims.

The lack of information accessible in online settings reveals a “major gap” in federal regulations, Cash said. While food manufacturers are required by the FDA to present certain information on food packaging, online grocery retailers aren’t required to reproduce that information on their websites. That means that consumers won’t necessarily be able to access information about calories, nutrition content, or allergens when buying their groceries online.

Since 2022, there were some reasons to think that retailers would step up their game. First, online grocery shopping is here to stay—recent data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) indicates that 20% of Americans buy their groceries online, while over 80% have done so in the past three years. The trend has been aided by a drop in online food prices relative to in-store shopping: Prices are now roughly comparable between in-store and online groceries, which hasn’t always been the case.

Second, online food retailers could have responded to the growing market by deciding to get out ahead of any regulatory action. “We thought there might be practical changes in what food retailers are doing,” Cash said.

There have been signs that the FDA is considering regulatory action, too. In 2023, the agency issued a request for information on food labeling in online grocery shopping, citing previous research from Cash and his colleagues as one basis of their request. “We, and others, have been pushing for change,” Cash said. But the agency has not yet taken regulatory action to close the gap.

The new study, with co-authors Jennifer Pomeranz, associate professor of public health policy and management at the NYU School of Global Public Health, and Dariush Mozaffarian, director of the Food is Medicine Institute and Jean Mayer Professor of Nutrition at the Friedman School, gives a more complete look at the issue and analyzes 60 food products across 10 different online grocery retailers. The food products were chosen to represent the typical range of food commonly sold at supermarkets, based on a formula used by the USDA for administering food assistance programs. The results show the trend has persisted: Each FDA-required label was present, accessible, and legible for just 35.1% of products.

Marketing claims and labels, though, were present for 83.7% of products. That’s what Cash finds unpalatable. “It’s far easier to find marketing that’s trying to sell you the food rather than the information that our society agrees should be there to tell you about your food,” he said.

“We saw many cases in which a nutrition facts label, for example, was only accessible after scrolling through a dozen marketing images, essentially forcing any consumers seeking that label to interact with marketing language,” Sharib said.

Making Shopping More Accessible

Studies show that population health is better when ingredient lists and nutrition facts are provided. When consumers can’t access that information, retailers “run the risk of perpetuating consumer’s incorrect understandings about the healthfulness of the foods they buy,” Sharib said.

Additionally, plenty of Americans follow specific diets meant to control certain health conditions and may be looking for foods with a specific nutrition content. “For example, if you’re worried about sodium intake because you have hypertension, food labeling is something that can be a very important part of your life,” Cash said. For people with specific allergies, a lack of food labeling can be dangerous, too.

The best way consumers can get the FDA-required information is to visit the websites of the food manufacturers themselves, Cash said. On those sites, nutrition information and ingredient lists are much more likely to be present and legible. Cash cautions that food labeling found in product reviews can be helpful, but may also be out of date or inaccurate.

And ultimately, the onus should be on regulators and the industry to provide important information to consumers, Cash said. “Putting the burden on consumers is not what we should be doing,” he said.

There are a few solutions: First, regulators or congress could pass new laws or issue new regulations to compel food retailers to make food labeling accessible. Second, the U.S. government could help online retailers to make food labeling accessible by providing a public database of nutrition, ingredient, and allergen information of packaged foods, Cash said.

“We simply cannot continue to let this sector grow without modern regulation,” Sharib said.

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