Hyundai has taken to TV advertising to explain how people should say its name
It took two British advertising students writing directly to then Nike CEO Philip Knight to draw confirmation of how to pronounce the sports equipment brand’s name properly.
In 2014, 50 years after Knight and Bill Bowerman had founded Blue Ribbon Sports, which would in 1971 be renamed Nike (after the Greek god of victory), the students sent Knight a letter, along with a stamped and addressed return envelope.
It contained just two paragraphs, asking Knight to simply circle the correct way to say the company’s name: ‘Nike’ or ‘Ni-ke’. It was reported at the time that they hadn’t expected a reply but, a few weeks later, got their letter back. Knight had circled ‘Ni-ke’.
As far as I can tell, this is the only time that Nike has been drawn into the pronunciation game. Searches on the wider web and Nike’s own pages for tips or official statements draw a blank.
The short of it is that it’s possible to build one of the world’s 10 most recognisable brands, a company that takes in $50 billion a year and employs 80,000 people while simultaneously not worrying that in some countries people will pronounce its name incorrectly.
And so, reader, to Hyundai, which, if you’re a regular radio listener, you will have heard advising an actor, and by association you, on how to say its name right.
Like Hyacinth Bucket answering the phone with a highfalutin ‘The Bouquet residence’, it’s not ‘High-oond-aye’, it’s ‘He-oon-day’, the advert says. There’s only a little attention given to the ‘y’, as the first two syllables are slurred towards one.
Hyundai says it would like to be called the same thing, correctly, worldwide. Although if you go to the US, residents don’t usually mention the ‘y’ at all, making it a two-syllable ‘Hunday’ – a situation about which, in Nike fashion, nobody seems to mind.
Not like they seem to in the UK, anyway, as the ad pushes its glasses up its nose and begins ‘akshually…’ before embarking on the correction and, here’s the thing, telling the listener precious little about any of its cars as it does so.
What luxury to be able to launch a Jaguar-lite advert intent on telling one who the company is rather than trying to actually sell them something it makes.
Why is Hyundai doing this? Why does it so borderline passive-aggressively care how one pronounces its name and why does it remotely think we care what it’s called?
I mean, look, I’m expected to get its name right, because it’s part of my gig. But as for the general consumer, as Mark Ritson wrote in Marketing Week: “Understanding the utter lack of importance a brand plays in the life of its customers is the beginning of better brand management.”
Advertising agency DDB’s Sarah Carter once put it more bluntly still. Marketers “should have Post-it notes on their desks saying: ‘Consumers don’t give a shit. People’s indifference to brands and advertising should be the starting point,’” she said.
We have bills to pay. Work to go to. Children to take places. Parents who need care. Fun to have. Food to cook. Places to be. Illnesses to put right. We have lives. What significance do you think I allot to how a faceless corporation pronounces its name? I have some milk going out of date tomorrow.
In terms of how much I care, it’s way, way below that. The fact is, people in different places might pronounce things differently. If that’s a person’s name, sensitivity says we should try to get it right. If it’s a brand, shrug emoji.
Besides, it’s complicated. Technically Skoda is Shkoda, Porsche is Porscher and Ikea is Ekaya. The chances of me saying those right depend not just on me knowing and remembering but also whether it makes me sound like a divot.
And even FC Bayern München, a sports team rather than a corporation, knows to call itself ‘Bayern Munich’ internationally, rather than harrumphing about why the English translate ‘München’ but not, say, ‘Napoli’.
Nike apparently thinks, as the cliché and sometime song lyric goes, ‘I don’t care what you call me, so long as you call me’.
Quite right, too. I will call you what I want. Sell me a car.
Source: Autocar
