Bread Line Design

Omnipresent branding is a design must for hardware and electrical manufactures, and marketing departments will go to great lengths to keep the logo and name visible across the units and all related media. The name is obviously crucial as it is the buyers and owners first point of brand association. If you’ve just spent £600 on a new Sony hi-fi you can drop the name in conversation with pride, and those you’re talking to will know the brand even if they know little about the hardware. However it seems that many companies completely ignore the benefits of their brand name when actually naming the products themselves, a prime example of this is Yamaha’s product naming.

I’ve been thinking of putting some home cinema hardware in my living room for a while, and knowing Yamaha have a name for quality audio I thought I’d take a look at their line of AV Receivers. They offer twelve in total, the names of each unit are as follows: RX-V359, RX-V361, RX-V459DAB, RX-V461DAB, RX-V559DAB, RX-N600D, DSP-AX759SE, DSP-AX761, DSP-AX861SE, RX-V1700, RX-V2700 and DSP-Z9, All instantly forgettable and all telling me nothing about the product (the DAB being an exception). It’s even difficult to get an idea of which models are similar but higher spec, I’m guessing the RX-V361 is similar but better and more expensive than the RX-V359, but remembering the numerical difference between 361 and 359 is a chore. Marantz and Rotel are just as bad. If the products had decent names then they would be more memorable, both for when planning a purchase and talking about said purchase with friends. Below is a screen shot of the current product list (on left), and a fictional list (on right) that I believe would serve Yamaha much better.

In direct comparison Wharfedale’s range of speakers include the Airedale, the Evo 2, the Diamond 8 and the model up Diamond 9, the Opus and Crystal. These names are cool, sensible and add an intangible value to the product, allowing buyer’s to say “I own a pair of Diamond 9’s”, which makes the huge price tag that more palatable. Change is coming, mobile phones are slowly making the shift to memorable and cool sounding names such as the LG Chocolate and Viewty, the Samsung Viewty and of course the iPhone; their all names my mum can remember come Christmas time.

The iPhone deserves a special mention, as it’s the only mobile I know that actually describes itself in the name, the “i” represents apple without actually stating the name, the “Phone” describing what it is. In fact the iPhone name has transcended the company behind it. People tend to talk about the iPhone, not the Apple iPhone, the need to prefix the manufacture before model is gone. In contrast when talking about Nokia or Samsung phones I instinctively mention the manufacture before the model number, as its often needed just to let the person I’m talking to know the type of phone I’m refereeing to.

Letting engineers name products puts a barrier between the buyer and the brand, but simple, memorable, aspirational product naming goes miles in connecting the brand with both buyer and owner. Addressing poor product naming should be high on any brand strategists list of priorities, and if we as designers can show that there’s more to branding than just logo design, we can raise the value of what we do, and bring some simplicity and old fashioned common sense to the often confusing world of premium manufactured goods.