Changing your name can change your brand's fate

This article uses different brand name change cases to analyze their inherent marketing motivation and benefits to brand marketing, and summarizes four possible methods to solve the problems encountered by brands at different stages of development. I recommend this article to friends in the marketing industry, and hope that it can inspire you.

For a brand, its name is its most important asset.

All marketing investment will be accumulated in the brand name. Especially for old brands, years of deep market development have made their brand name synonymous with a certain category and the first choice of users.

However, in the past two years, there has been a wave of "name changes" in the marketing circle. What is this new operation? Here are 4 ways to play, hoping to bring you new marketing inspiration.

1. Use "name change" to lock in consumption scenarios

For mass consumer brands, launching limited collaborations at a certain stage is mostly to lock in a certain consumption scenario and then trigger a fashion trend. The same logic applies to name change marketing.

In 2022, Wanglaoji entered the Spring Festival festival scene and launched 100 surname cans. In addition to the original "Wanglaoji" packaging, users can also customize herbal tea with their own surnames, including Li Laoji, Zhou Laoji, Zheng Laoji and other 115 surname products.

This wave of name-changing marketing not only emphasizes the traditional Chinese surname culture and fits in with the Spring Festival context, but also innovates the expression of Spring Festival blessings through private customization. This two-pronged approach directly caused hundreds of surname jars to be sold out overnight and successfully became a hot topic.

After the Spring Festival name-changing marketing became a big hit, Wanglaoji updated the "surname can" gameplay to create the "auspicious can", covering six aspects: study, family, wealth, career, health, and love. Digging deep into every memorable little happy scene in daily life, Wanglaoji customized exclusive blessings for users, such as "good luck on the wedding", "good luck on picking up the car", "good luck on the birthday", "good luck on promotion", "good luck on opening a business"...

From advertising and packaging to channel terminals, the slogan "If you are afraid of getting a sore throat, drink Wanglaoji" has been integrated into every aspect of the brand. After grasping the pain point of "fear of getting a sore throat" and completing market education, Wanglaoji has continued to tap into new traffic pools from every detailed consumption scenario with the "name change marketing" approach.

The "name change" customized exclusive scene can not only achieve accurate conversion, but also allow Wanglaoji to have a deeper emotional connection with users. For users, Wanglaoji is no longer just a can of herbal tea, but also carries a beautiful memory.

2. Update brand positioning by “changing the name”

Brands have different goals at different stages of development. When a brand enters the mature stage, it should consider how to open up new business growth points.

After gaining a firm foothold in the catering sector with slogans such as “Don’t call me mom when you’re Ele.me” and “Whether you’re hungry or not, go to Ele.me”, Ele.me launched the #Ele.meChanged10,000Names# major event marketing, announcing brand upgrade and expansion of new business.

Each name corresponds to the needs of users in various aspects of their lives and work. In this way, Ele.me cleverly tells everyone that Ele.me not only delivers food, but also vegetables, fruits, flowers, medicines, daily necessities, etc., thus conveying the new brand image of "Ele.me delivers everything". After successfully changing 10,000 names, they gradually changed the work clothes of the blue riders. When the blue riders wear work clothes printed with "XXX Le.me" and shuttle through the streets and alleys, it is equivalent to a guerrilla mobile advertisement.

It is very difficult to change the user mindset of "Ele.me = food delivery". However, through a simple "name change" marketing, Ele.me not only allows users to gradually establish a new brand awareness of "Ele.me = delivery of everything" in a relaxed interactive atmosphere, but also accumulates these traffic on the brand name, strengthening the "fun and interesting" youthful brand image.

3. Use “name change” to convey brand warmth

Although the brand name was also replaced with the surname, Fangtai’s “name change” was to draw more attention to the “Chinese wives group”.

According to the fourth survey on the social status of Chinese women in 2021, women spend 154 minutes caring for family members and doing housework such as cooking, cleaning, and daily shopping, which is about twice as much as men.

However, even though they take on most of the management of family life and take care of children, the Chinese wives are still often overlooked. Based on this insight, Fangtai changed its name to emphasize the important family status of Chinese wives.

There is Mrs. Zhou who is regarded as a role model by her children, Mrs. Zhang who is quietly waiting for her child to be born, Mrs. Zhao who plays and fights with her children, Mrs. Li who goes on a date alone with her husband, Mrs. Xie who organizes family gatherings, and Mrs. Yang who grows old with her husband... Through these concrete images, the identity of "Mrs. X" has become clear and perceptible. It has never referred to anyone's attachment, but an identity full of happiness.

FOTILE has always used unique emotional narratives to focus on women's own values ​​and explore happy family culture. However, compared with previous time-consuming and laborious marketing plans such as "Mom's Time Machine" and "FOTILE Dream Song", this time the name change marketing of "Human Baitai" seems quite light, and only a small word change can achieve good marketing results.

4. Use “name change” to leverage brand appeal

In this marketing campaign, Tmall not only changed its own brand name, but also coordinated a number of brands to change their names together to create momentum. Familiar brand names were changed to related endangered species through "word addition". "Tmall" became "Tianjinmao", "Baiqueling" became "Bai Lu Kongqueling", "Qipilang" became "Qipi Prairie Wolf", "Golden Dragon Fish" became "Golden Dragon Redfin Fish", "Lina Bear" became "Lina Polar Bear"... Let the "wrong" brand name support endangered animals.

In addition to the name change, Tmall also teamed up with Ant Forest to customize and produce nine "love products" with nine brands. Each product is printed with specific endangered conditions and scientific introductions to raise public awareness of animal protection.

There are public welfare activities on the theme of "animal protection" every year, but not many of them are impressive. In the age of scarce attention, users have less and less time and patience to spend on advertisements. Tmall can arouse users' curiosity to the greatest extent by cooperating with multiple brands to "change their names", "Why did big brands collectively change their names", "Did Tmall put a batch of counterfeit products on the shelves". In addition, the close connection between "brand name" and "endangered species" can also achieve the purpose of faster popularization of science.

V. Conclusion

Name change marketing is both pleasing and effective, but it is not suitable for all brands. First of all, it must be a brand with a certain degree of popularity in order to create a strange sense of familiarity through "name change", bring unexpected surprises to users, and trigger a wide range of discussions. In addition, "name change" marketing is not a gimmick marketing. It needs to be carefully considered from the brand itself, because all marketing volume and discussion will eventually be superimposed on the brand name.

Author: Aye, WeChat public account: Shock Copywriter (id: SHOCKCW)