the
innovative LEDGER
An e-Newsletter from The Innovative Edge™ Inc.
Vol.
9, No. 9 - September 2009
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Spicy Main Courses
By Jeff Govendo
Well,
here it is, early September, and a new crop of freshmen has filled
the classrooms of colleges and universities throughout the land.
Not
long ago, they would have been selecting courses with such exciting
names as English 101, Introduction to Economics or American Literature.
Their elder classmen would have been faced with English 201, Advanced
Economics and so on.
But
that's changing rapidly.
College
professors need to fill their classrooms just as film industry execs
must fill moviehouses, by attracting new and repeat customers.
And somehow "Introduction to Physics" just doesn't have
the same zing as "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" or
"Sex and the City."
So
academia is going all Hollywood. According to a recent Boston
Globe article, college instructors have been creating or re-branding
courses to appeal to students' desire for entertainment, sense of
adventure and, yes, even to their hormones.
For
example, Boston College German studies professor Michael Resler has
re-dubbed his Middle Ages literature course "Knights, Castles
and Dragons" and seen a threefold increase in enrollment. Alice
Cheung, a biochemistry professor at the University of Massachusetts
is planning to call a basic science course "The Light Fantastic:
Wonders of Biology Under the Microscope." Jessica Holmes, an
economics professor at Middlebury College in Vermont, will be teaching
"The Economics of Sin," a studious look at the impact of
crime, pornography, drugs and prostitution on the American economic
system. (I do not know if this course is available to non-matriculated
students.)
The
purists among us might lament the need to so blatantly market college
courses. Shouldn't the love of learning and desire for a well-rounded
education be enough?
Apparently
not. While a college curriculum isn't quite the same as the free
market (e.g. many courses are not elective, particularly for underclassmen),
there is certainly competition for students' patronage. Poorly
attended classes get dropped, as do their instructors if the numbers
don't add up.
So,
to the extent that a clever or unusual course name can help fill the
classroom, why not call your theology course "Oh God!" as
they've done at College of the Holy Cross? (of all places...)
I
have long maintained that the single most powerful element of a product
branding strategy is the name given to it. It is certainly the
most enduring; you can change almost anything about how you present
a product to the public, but rarely the name itself.
It
is also one of the most overlooked elements, often relegated to the
whims of a CEO who takes a liking to a certain name, or to an office
contest among employees who by definition are too close to be entirely
objective. Most of us can recall examples of very good products
that came and went for lack of a name that drew customers to them.
Likewise, there are hundreds of products on the market no better than
their competitors, yet they outsell them because of names that are
more memorable, meaningful or perhaps just more pleasing to the ear.
Some
successful names are long and filled with meaning ("I Can't Believe
It's Not Butter!"); others short and apparently meaningless (Google,
UGG). Some describe a desireable result in the fewest possible words
(Spic 'n Span). Others hint at a groundbreaking technology, arousing
curiosity and anticipation over it (the forthcoming Chevy Volt).
Conventional
wisdom has it that a good name must be short, but this is not always
true, as the above-noted margarine illustrates. It must, however,
be memorable and easy to associate with the function or benefit of
the product. It always should evoke positive associations - when you
think about it, you feel good.
Above
all, give the naming of your product its due diligence. It takes
a lot of work to conceive of, develop and bring a new product to market,
so it's a shame so many fail because of the slapdash manner in which
they are named.
That's
why I didn't name this publication Newsletter 101.
