Being provocative isn’t always a problem—in some categories it can be your best strategy. If bold language aligns with your brand and connects more deeply with the right people, then losing a few others might be a price worth paying. The ones who turn away were never your audience, anyway!
When is Naughty Nice
This video originally appeared in LinkedIn.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Hey guys, it’s Rebeca with BrandTrue, and we’re going to talk about today, when it comes to brand names, when is naughty nice? And the answer is… we’ve talked about naughty brand names before. Naughty is nice when it’s what’s needed to fulfill your strategy, when it’s what’s needed to stand out in the marketplace.
So what made me want to revisit this topic is that I posted recently on here about a Tom Ford fragrance called Fabulous. And as there often is when I go to the naughty side of brand names, there was some pearl-clutching in the comments. And so I really wanted to think about it, make sure that I stood behind what I had said, and I do. I think that some categories lend themselves to being more provocative to saying, “I understand that I may alienate part of the audience, maybe even most of the audience, but when I do it, in order to connect more deeply and more emotionally with another part of the audience, that’s enough for me to get the business that I need.”
Said another way, some names are vanilla and some names are Rocky Road. Some people can’t stand Rocky Road, I’m one of them. But people love Rocky Road when they love it far more than what anyone thinks about vanilla. So I think Fabulous is that kind of name. It says attitude in a big way, it says Tom Ford in a big way, it says fashion, and it says cutting-edge. And that’s what they need to do to stand out. I think it’s a great name. Dare I say, it’s…
