A cyber dome stretched over the globe filled with real and fake personalities buzzing cross fertilization form realities to fantasies while flirting in masquerades. This is the sacred space where the populous of the world securely feels bashful, naughty, cuddles, cajoles and nurses the mother of all social media. Facebook is brilliantly structured, technologically advanced, financially motivated and emotionally charged. It is equally filled with the most desired unlimited hollow caverns for advertising agencies eager to graphically paint the interior and display their client’s name identities turning them into an oasis of money trees.
However, it appears, old established name identities draped in clumsy masquerade outfits trip all over the floors causing a nuisance. To a degree, they are politely being asked to drop their outfits and adopt more sleek attire for this type of cyber gliding. Are these the reasons that advertising and ROI is not getting solid traction on Facebook and is this why the shares are continuously sliding south? Does Facebook provide enough muscle for brand owners to catapult their name identities into the upper stratosphere of cash and fame? Does it offer better options than Google Ads or other pay per click options? How fast and how far can name identities skate and grow on Facebook platforms?
The granular analysis directly points to the recently turned upside down naming world and its recently adopted tempo and the rhythm. The name identity entry to these elite cyber dance clubs is now in the hands of ICANN, The Internet Authority, the revolutionary leader of the global domain name expansion and their newly selected orchestras under the baton of the new game changers of name identity world. It’s now a fact, that the dot names and ICANN gTLD race has become the most important saga in the history of branding. It’s no longer important how much you know about these changes, the facts are on the ground now. The future of naming will be determined more by their digital elasticity to skate over overly dressed names with poor alpha-structures.
Facts: today, there are some top 100 highly diluted dictionary words that are being used by 100 million businesses around the world. The sad picture of real marketing waste appears.
Most of the best last century print era names do not work on social media or new digital platforms for being diluted, too long, too complicated or simply being out of touch with new era. Secondly, the majority of name identities are heavily engaged in losing trademark battles and their litigious posture precludes them to modification, adjustments or outright name change.
So let’s face some new music.
Once you dig deeper for qualified knowledge the first thing you will realize that old brand names are badly tripping on two fronts; firstly, the overly dressed and camouflaged name identities suddenly become stripped naked as they enter into any global social media, shedding all their personality. Example, when names like United, Premier, Orange or National are typed as chat, they get lost as common words in the cyber lingo, they are stripped naked as they no longer have fancy graphic support.
Unlike Google Ads, which pop-up at the time of purchase decisions and where ad copy provides a direct link to the searcher, Facebook provides, so far, the largest chat rooms where the global public innocently sprinkles every day brand names with new typos and spelling variations to erase the already lingering power of any twisted or poorly crafted name. This loosely abbreviated or free flow text or the so called ‘buzz’ or ‘word of mouth’ chat, is always a casual chat to other fielding chatters. Although Facebook offers a branded page for brand owners, but does that create enough buzz or mega sales? Face book from social interaction points of view provides the best known social medium to date, but currently as a name identity builder it seriously lacks the tools to maintain the integrity of the name. Highly trendy names can instantly become popular or equally become typo jokes and sway the direction of the campaign. The chatter has the control on how to spell type or showcase the name.
Can you identify the high maintenance big brand names on the following social media chats?
“…just checked the wind at the mall, grand service but tag too high…”
“…I have no option but united, they would know where my real goodies are…”
“… No matter what, for me prime is the way to go before I try orange or wave…”
“…and then she gave me a Rolex…”
Highly distinct names like ‘Rolex’ or Panasonic are identifiable in any typed conversation while diluted names like ‘United’ ‘Premier’ ‘Orange’, ‘Wave’ ‘Wind’ disappear in the bursts of text making no sense, causing confusion and least building any distinct name identity. In old mediums, weak names had all the graphic support to make them distinct. On Facebook, these camouflaged brand names get stripped naked and just exposed as words in text. Today, Facebook is the fastest growing and the largest communication pools in the world have transformed old established name brands into ‘typed lingo’.
If e-commerce and social media is where the global image marketing world is headed, a brand new age Internet mentality over name branding has taken over. The dot names have changed national and global naming issues big time. Just like couple decades ago domain name introduction changed the marketing branding forever. A similar wave is upon us and ICANN gTLD dot names have brought the naming issues on top of the boardroom agenda. Who are these 1000 game changers and what are their 1930 dot names of choice? Today, Donuts has 300 dot names, Yahoo and Google about 100 each. All told 1930 dot names in play. The 1000 entities from around the world have invested on average a million dollar on each single dot name. On this topic AARM www.aarm.org is organizing various educational events in 2012.
Research shows that currently less than 2% of corporate executives are able to articulate on this topic to some degree. Currently no B school in the world teaches the issues on global naming complexities or corporate nomenclature as part of global branding issues. The global naming complexities and domain name expansion has created a branding ultimatum for the marketers of the world. Now to explore any major new opportunity on the image expansion front a name identity must pass the acid test of the name evaluation to ensure smooth passage to have any potential to survive in the marketplace. The game changers have landed and the advanced name games have already begun. In this business half knowledge is the worst kind of knowledge.
Facebook has a great future ahead but when it comes to name identities, its current format do not offer any distinct features for the wide spread brand owners of the globe to dramatically grow and expose their names. Facebook will surely evolve and change and adopt like other giants. The global naming complexities will distinctively separate the winners and losers. The masquerade ball is ready and the orchestra has once again started to fill the sound under the cyber dome. So let’s dance.
Naseem is a lecturer, his next lecture events: www.azna.com . He is also a syndicated columnist, and the author of his most recent work: ‘Domination, The GTLD Name Game’ www.metrostate.com