Marketing is the art of getting customers to buy your product, rather than your competitors product. Marketers often put on airs and consider themselves above mere salesmen in company hierarchies. Which is sorta dumb, you need a lot of face-to-face time with real customers before you know enough to market anything.
One little known secret to marketing is naming the product. The product needs a name to distinguish it from the competitor's product, to allow customers to inquire about your product, place an order for your product, recognize your product in advertising, or even to leave a favorable comment on a website about your product.
For example Detroit used to give names to their cars, Roadmaster, El Dorado, Impala, Fury, and De Ville. Now they make do with DTS, CTS, 6000LE. None is memorable, or easy to remember.
Also, a product wants one single name. Selling the same product under two different names is counterproductive. For instance Chrysler sold the very same mini van under the Plymouth, Dodge and Chrysler names. Everybody knew it was the same minivan, Chrysler didn't even bother to change the grille. But it dilutes the advertising, and lowers the name recognition. If I run three ads for ONE product name, customers are more likely to remember that name than if I run three ads for three different names.
Likewise, once you have a decent product name, with some recognition out in the market, DON'T change the name. Datsun had established itself as a decent car over the span of 15 years, and a reasonably successful racing program. Then corporate decided to change the name to Nissan, which nobody remembers to this day. Suits at Ford decided to use "500" for the name of their bread-and-butter passenger car, instead of the long established and well liked name "Torino". It required intervention by Allan Mulally, new Ford CEO brought in from Boeing, to put the Torino name back on the car.
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