Branding expert Mark Ritson in Marketing magazine this week, in his article on the “Ten Branding Lessons” to be learned from ToTP’s demise.
Brand naming is always more important later, rather than sooner. Yes, Top Of The Pops was a swinging name in 1964, but if only it had consulted a brand-consulting company before rushing into things. Clearly, a name such as Musica or Poporato would have better served the brand over the long haul.
Presented without comment.
I love reading these wordhurdle.co stories
Woah, Cerebus! It's always good to see someone diving deep into this classic. Sounds like an intense, but worthwhile journey.…
Haha, this is so savage! Some of these points are kinda true though, like the expensive records thing. I know…
Wow, what a mess! It's impressive how problematic his opinions were even back then. But the discussion is interesting for…
Eleven years later (couldn't hang on another 3), I just wanted to add "I agree".. it's damn funky
Thanks for the deep dive into all of this lunacy. I started reading Cerebus in high school, when it was…
It's been a heck of a ride revisiting Cerebus through your eyes and analysis. Thank you for taking the time…
I think this is more in the sense of "anyone else Sim chooses"
Surely the point holding on to a name like Top Of The Pops is that it is almost branding proof. It existed “pre-branding” and therefore is not seen as uncool because of its name. Yr Granny is uncool not because she is called Hortense, she’s uncool cos she’s yr granny. Poporato!!!!
You say poporato and I say Poporaaato.
Also what is the “long haul” in TV branding terms if 40 yrs isn’t!!?
This Mark Ritson guy probably gets paid over 60k a year to come up with this sort of nonsensical argument and words like Poporato*. And he is sleeping with all our wives and girlfriends.
*only good it it’s pronounced ‘po po rah tow’
Mark Ritson writes the weekly branding expertise column in Marketing and I’m sure earns well over that. His articles are actually often pretty good but when he’s wrong he’s very wrong, and he’s very emphatic about being very wrong. Also there are a series of pictures of him in ‘casual yet businesslike’ mode which illustrate the column each week: when the finger-pointing Ritson appears you KNOW a brand’s gonna be in trouble.
don’t forget our boyfriends the big bi bastard!!
so is there actual written down “marketing wisdom” on pseudo-latinate and/or foreign-“style” branding names: they ALWAYS annoy me but i have a classical background and am clearly bein territorial in a way that can only possibly apply to a TINY market segment
given that TotP lasted 40 years, and that “branding” as such did not exist in 1964, surely this fellow is in fact making a joke here?
re. “joke” I am honestly not sure. The rest of the article reads not at all tongue in cheek but this section is so evidently ridiculous that yes, there’s a good chance he is having a giggle here.
re. “wisdom” – yes somewhere! It annoys me too and many another – viz squabbles over “Consignia”.
Also Branding did exist in ’64 – the naming/branding/talking about branding area of marketing dates from the 50s (and ‘brands’ predate then obv.)
if only Melody Maker had been ‘branded’ Melodico it would still be with us today
The reason so many companies these days go for those pseudo-latin names is (1) most of the good words are already trademarked and (2) they all want to be global brands so need something that is not going to end up sounding like poo in swahili.
They are still bloody annoying though.
I was hoping the poncey names were just a fad and would go away.
i understand not wanting to sound like poo in swahili — haha BUM crisps eg — but how does being pseudo-latin avoid this?
Ironically though TV ‘brands’ have gone in the opposite direction – it’s so hard to catch viewers’ attention when there are so many channels and programmes, they tend to go for the Ronseal approach and have very literal titles that describe exactly what the programme is going to show…which is exactly what Top of the Pops did.
Bumico
I think Ritson – if he’s being serious – is objecting to “Pops” as a dated word.
They obviously research it to depth to avoid the poo issue; but I think the reason they go for psuedo-latin rather than any other made-up language is they think it’ll make them sound grander (and it’s general big corporations who go for that, rather than new products – and therefore they think it gives them the required stature)
“have very literal titles that describe exactly what the programme is going to show…which is exactly what Top of the Pops did.”
Tops Of The Pop: new show in which the father of Andi Peters showcases his collection of woolly jumpers.
Another thing about pseudo names is that they are easier to google as the right thing. Could be apocryphal, but i heard that the name Kodak was coined to be a distinctive new word, and that works even more so now.
speaking of which, “google”.
But google is based on a real word – googol, which means 10 the power 100. Which obviously refers to the fact that site was intended to search huge numbers of pages. Wikipedia claims that they had intended to actually call themselves googol but someone mispelt it early on.
i like totally made-up new names! dub of the dobs!!
and the BEST EVAH POP PROG EVAH was called “lift-off with ayesha”
Also, interestingly, the only four common letters in every alphabet using roman script are the letters g o l and e (even Vietnamese has them) – hence for a large amount of the word it needs no respelling or accenting!
I wonder if that was by luck or by design?
Or just a rubbish lie
baranlie alert: vietnamese doesn’t use the roman script!
Goleo!
my uncle said once that the honda integra should have had a sister car called the “corrupta”
It was seeing this that made me laugh out loud, even before reading the post:
Presented without comment.
Posted by Tom in Pop | 25 Comments »
“They obviously research it to depth to avoid the poo issue;”
You’d think, but only five years ago Honda (them again!) were about to launch the Honda Fitta, which in Norwegian means Honda The Cunt… (It’s now Honda Fit in some places and Honda Jazz in others.)
jazz ha ha as in jazz mag. poor honda
Actually Mark, the Vietnamese do use an accented roman script, as implemented by their French overlords. It causes no end of trouble in Vietnam as Westerners (not used to the accents), suckered into being able to read the words, try to pronounce the words as they would sound in their own language, invariably meaning they insult their host regarding genetalia. Or say Top Of The Poo’s instead of Top Of The Pops.
More in Vietnamese: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_language
I have a load of VN accented fonts here as proof of that bit. but the original claim still sounds dubious.