Brand peeves are those things you hate about other company’s brands. It could be copying icons, such as the Nike swoosh. Maybe it’s using well known music classics in commercials. Maybe you hate logoed merchandise. It doesn’t matter what it is, I just want to give you an opportunity to get it off your chest. Your brand peeves like my own don’t necessarily mean that they are wrong, just that they are wrong for you and me.
My number one brand peeve is acronyms for start-up businesses and small businesses that don’t have a lot of years behind them. (Acronyms are names/words made up of the first letter of a group of words) Yes it’s what a lot of the big boys are doing. Acronyms such as IBM, A&P, UPS, HP and NYC are truly successful acronyms. BUT, they didn’t start out that way and neither should you.
I contend that they don’t tell prospective customers what you are or what you do. In the big bad world what on earth does TBE do? Who cares?
When, you over time get the recognition and respect that makes your brand recognizable can you abbreviate your identity and go with an acronym effectively. IBM for instance started out as International Business Machines. Later in it’s life it was simply easier to say and they grew beyond business machines, so IBM made more sense. I believe in most cases you have to earn acronyms.
The ONLY time I believe acronyms are effective from the get-go, is when they spell something that in itself can be spun to mean something on it’s own merit. P90X for instance: who knows what it stands for, but I know what it is as a name.
I challenge you to get your brand peeve into the mix.
P.S. TBE by the way is my company – The Branding Experts
I am “peeved” by the use of amazing music in car commercials. I get it, but why must an advertising company taint a song by Led Zeppelin or Phoenix by using it to sell cars? Answer me that! It goes against the very idea of some artists….but I guess they ARE the ones selling the royalties aren’t they.
Good point about not using an acronym for your company name in most cases. When you are starting out, it is much better to make it extremely obvious what your company does.
One of my brand peeves is those stupid mac guy commercials. They spend too much time bashing windows’ previous problems instead of concentrating on what actually makes a mac better. In no way does it make me want to switch to a mac.
You made me laugh out load “laptop”. My wife and I love those commercials, but I’,m a dyed in the wool Mac guy. Great to hear another perspective! Thanks for sharing your brand peeve with us.
Anybody else out there want to get something off their chest?
UGH. I hate no-name acronyms. Those companies are so pretentious.
I have another brand peeve–slogans. Especially generic slogans like “Your one-stop shop for —-“. It’s so overused and I hate it.
PCC, I wonder how many of those “one-stop-shops” really are.
Thanks for venting here.
Pt we really do have the artist to blame here. I’m with you – it cheapens my memory.
“One stop shop” was the first thing I also thought of.
On a related note I can’t stand any articles pluggin the next big -killer.
The ipod-killer, gmail-killer, Windows-killer.. ahhhh
You’re right about the killer thing, I never really thought about it – but your right – over-kill 🙂
I hate all the products/companies that are now “eProducts” or “eCompanies”.
Speaking of “eProducts”…how about “iProducts” and “iCompanies”? Even if they have nothing to do with Apple.
You know people love to eFollow?
One thing that peeves me is when people name their companies after themselves. It comes off as egotistical. If you are successful in your endeavors, then the company nearly always has to keep that name for the equity built when the person who founded it retires. If you are not successful, then not only did you trash the brand you trash your name too. If you happen to trash a brand that is not your name, you can always launch a new brand and learn from your mistakes.
I despise the word “solutions,” people throw it around so much that it tends not to mean anything to me anymore. I get especially peeved when they put it in the company’s name: “XYZ Solutions.”…I just threw up a little.
Thanks for your input Rebekah and Kika – I’m just doing my part to get these peeves off of our collective chests 🙂
I despise the * asterisk – If you need to put this in your advertising then you are not doing a good enough job of marketing/advertising your product. The asterisk is most often paired with terms like, “any” or “unlimited” and the Subway commercial for “Any” Five dollar foot long doesn’t mean that you can go in and buy “any” sub on their menu for $5.
Filipino – you especially see that with products that are related to the Mac product. I guess it’s to build an association to it, but it can be lame at times.
Thanks for your contribution to this discussion.
That’s also one thing I hate right now–the fact that every Apple product right now is called an “i” something. By the way, “iPad” is the WORST name for a product I’ve encountered in the last decade. Which is a shame, because it looks kinda nifty.
I’ve heard lots of people say they dislike the name, oddly I don’t mind it. Because it’s “i” something you certainly know it’s an Apple product.
I’m sorry to respond so late as I was distracted by a tornado hitting our property last Sunday, no injuries but lots of damage.
I would agree, ebook websites are awful to. They attempt to brand themselves as a company but 99% of them use the same cookie cutter approach and just reword their ebook names as something FLASHY that DOES SOMETHING FLASHY lol