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Ask HN: Stuck with an unpronounceable product name
Hi everyone,
Throwaway account. Been on HN since 2008, but first time asking anything.
Here's the situation - we have a mature desktop product, IT-oriented, with a very good reputation and strong loyal following of people who know about it. Started as a side project, so didn't spend much thought on naming it and just picked something. It finally grew to a point of being worthy of proper marketing and promotion and... that name choice is now a problem. It is hard to pronounce and it doesn't sound nice if you manage to do that.
This complicates things when trying to sponsor video channels and podcasts for obvious reasons, but these are one of our best options for reaching people we are interested in.
Obviously, we can rename it, but this translates into a massive amount of work, in part because of several years worth of accumulated support/kb/forum material, all of which refers to the existing name.
Another option is to adopt the "Called Hahaha, but written HxHxHx" approach. This feels needlessly complicated if not forced.
Third option is to launch a clone of the product with a different name, use it for capturing the ad traffic and then direct it towards the original product. This seems workable, but also a bit too experimental for comfort.
---
Anyone's been in a similar situation before?
Do you have any experience with renaming a _mature_ product?
Thanks!
- indeed30 7y agoThis instantly made me think of Qbserve.
- Operyl 7y agoOff topic, but: That looks insanely cool, thanks for mentioning it. I'm going to give it a try :).
- ivm 7y agoHaha, it got this name because we were super tired after preparing for the release and couldn't find anything related to time tracking that wasn't already taken. I thought about renaming the app a year later but, again, nothing amazing was found after a couple of days of research, so I decided it wasn't worth the hassle of rebranding.
- throwaway190620 7y agoThis is perfectly pronounceable though - Cue-Bee-Serve.
- dsincl12 7y agoI was thinking Bvckup https://bvckup2.com/ https://bvckup2.com/ :)
- Splognosticus 7y agoHeh, I think this is a great counter-example. Great product, who cares if it's got a weird name? :)
- neuroticfish 7y agoIt sticks in your brain in more ways than one. When someone tells you about Bvckup, they have to clarify "Backup with a V" and that forces you to think about it longer because there's no letter in "backup" that could be confused with a V.
- naniwaduni 7y ago"Backup with a V" would be backvp to me.
- whatshisface 7y agoMaybe you don't have to rename. It might be awkward to pronounce the current name, but unless you have any data indicating that people's purchasing decisions are being affected...
- throwaway190620 7y agoWe have no way to measure this, but common logic would suggest that there _is_ a negative effect there too. Imagine a junior sysadmin coming over the manager's desk and suggesting to use a tool that sounds like someone profusely swearing in Parseltongue. But that's a secondary concern compared to not being promote product through any channels with an audio track.
- whatshisface 7y agoWould people be less likely to buy it if the podcaster had to spell out the name? It depends on how rational the decision to purchase it is.
- throwaway190620 7y agoI suspect that yes, they would be actually. It's one thing to say "Sponsored by Apple" and another "Sponsored, erm, by Q-Z-W-C-K-I, which is actually much better than what its name might imply". The less friction there is, the better. Especially for placements that last mere seconds.
- legitster 7y agoLots of companies spell out their names on podcasts. I think it's unfair to compare your brand to the most recognized brand in the world. You should really do some testing to see how random people perceive it.
- legitster 7y agoLook into usability testing or panels. You can create tests where people are asked to read or listen to sets of company names, do a minute of tasks, and be asked to recall company names based on their services. Relatively cheap to do in Amazon Turk.
- kangnkodos 7y agoCan you add an additional name? HxHxHx - DesktopThing Over time, you could transition to using the additional name more and more, and finally, rename the product.
- throwaway190620 7y agoMight've worked if the thing wasn't sitting on its own site.
- notahacker 7y agoThat transition can happen gradually too: NewAppName becomes the leadgen site all the video ad watchers get sent to, then gradually support and FAQ and company emails get migrated over to it, and the actual app url migrates later, if at all.
- cddotdotslash 7y agoIt might not be as bad as you think. First, you've gotten the following you have based on reputation and your following so far. Second, most IT applications are written about more than they are talked about. I think consumer apps need a pronounceable name because people talking about them provides marketing value. But the discovery of most IT apps comes from written communication - blog posts, Google searches, etc. Finally, if you're really concerned about it, maybe incorporate a pronunciation guide (phonetic symbols) into your branding somehow.
- throwaway190620 7y ago> But the discovery of most IT apps comes from written communication - blog posts, Google searches, etc. Well, yeah, precisely the original reasoning behind the name. The problem is that we can't promote through any channels that require pronouncing the name and there are quite a few really good ones.
- jessaustin 7y agoSo the name is vulgar when pronounced? That's awesome! You must work in a really chill organization. Also, you definitely want to change the name. Lots of organizations aren't that chill, and you haven't sold anything to them yet.
- cddotdotslash 7y agoWell then it sounds like the option is pretty binary - change it.
- perennate 7y agoIf your concern over a rename is more about the work in updating material than the potential loss in revenue due to confusion about the name, then I think you should rename, since it'll be worth the effort in the long run.
- Starwatcher2001 7y agoIf the spelling of the product name is uncommon, that might be a plus on search engines.
- Operyl 7y agoIt's a hassle, but it's not impossible. For example, Matomo (previously Piwik): https://www.google.com/search?q=piwik https://www.google.com/search?q=piwik
- leot 7y ago"Spark" the IoT company renamed itself to "Particle" and it seems to have gone ok.
- friedman23 7y agoif it's something like HxHxHx you could call it Hx3?
- throwaway190620 7y agoGood idea for sure. Unfortunately it's not HxHxHx.
- notahacker 7y agoActually persuaded my dad to do more or less exactly that for his consulting business by pointing out he'd be better off creating a brand based on the number of Ts in our surname than have clients calling all the time to ask him to spell it out so their emails stopped bouncing...
- linuxasheviller 7y agoSay hi to the other folks on the Azure team from us.
- hn_throwaway_99 7y agoI have literally never heard anyone mispronounce Azure.
- iNate2000 7y agoAzyure vs Azher?
- cddotdotslash 7y agoI have (albeit not terribly). I've heard the "A" pronounced like in "appetite" and also like the "A" in "America" with the "zure" sounding like the "sure" in "closure".
- varikin 7y agoReally? I never know if it's AZH-uhr or az-YOOR. I just googled it and apparently it's the first for US pronunciation and the second for the UK. https://english.stackexchange.com/a/26645 https://english.stackexchange.com/a/26645
- quickthrower2 7y agoClearly the latter gov’nr
- vollmond 7y agoIs the accent on the first or second syllable? Is the A pronounced "uh" or like in "apple"? I honestly don't know, having never experienced that word in verbal conversation, only books. Though I don't think it's bad enough to be an example of OP's problem by any means.
- aqme28 7y agoBecause you can pronounce it a dozen different ways and thankfully people still know what you're talking about.
- itcmcgrath 7y agoI've been around a company that was 180+ years old (so rebranding was non-trivial ;)). They switched to an acronym based on the original name, so there was was 1) a direct link between old and new, 2) old branded tgat was mussed wasnt a big deal for bew customers, and 3) everyone called it by the acronym going forward. A similar approach might work for you and allow an incremential phase out of the old brand over time. Instead of HxHxHx, it's now HITD (HxHxHx IT Desktop)
- kangnkodos 7y agoKFC is 180 years old?!
- itcmcgrath 7y agoOnly 89 (it wasn't KFC). But yes; common pattern.
- nullspace 7y ago> I've been around a company that was 180+ years old (so rebranding was non-trivial ;)) It's not fair to mention this and NOT tell which company and link to the story about this! :)
- DoreenMichele 7y agoThere may not be a story to link to. I once did a write up about Aflac's rebranding because I worked there for over five years and couldn't find a write up of it anywhere. I think that blog is no longer available to the public, so we may be back to "It doesn't exist anywhere online that I can tell."
- nullwasamistake 7y agoRenaming is easy. The corporate types spend months on a new logo. All you need to do is find replace the old name in the codebase, maybe a day of work max. The marketing materials can be updated to reflect that over time
- kowdermeister 7y agoJust do the rebranding, it's better to do it on the long run. Yes, it's a huge amount of work, but it could be done in a finite amount of time. The two names can co-exist, like New name (formerly HxHxHx) Furthermore not all name updates are equally important, some can be done with a DB find and replace some is shit manual work, but you can hire for this job someone. Read about stories how companies did this before. Currently I can think of one case that's ongoing: Taxify -> Bolt. They still have the Taxify logo on their cabs in Hungary but the app updated to Bolt (taxify).
- throwaway190620 7y ago> The two names can co-exist That's what I'm wondering the most actually. I think the least intrusive way to do it is to introduce a literal clone of the product under a different name. Make it clear that it is the exact same things as the original. What I can't find is any examples of anyone doing this. Also, not sure how would the mighty Google react to these shenanigans and if their automata won't decided to delist both products just because it looks fishy.
- legitster 7y agoYeah, I wouldn't recommend doing so without consulting with an SEO person. I don't think you will necessarily get dinged by Google, but a slow trickle towards a new page may kneecap both.
- dheera 7y agoSEO is overrated in most cases these days. Nobody searches for stuff anymore. They find you mostly through social media, non-social media, and word of mouth.
- legitster 7y agoSearch is still hugely important. If you have a podcast ad or a tradeshow booth people don't remember you by your company name. They remember you as "that one company that does x". You need to make sure you show up as that company that does x, otherwise your competitors will eat up your marketing budget.
- crucialfelix 7y agoI pronounced a certain webserver "en-jinx" for years until I finally realized it was "engine x". Which is a really daft name. Should be: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGQXRICAEAE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGQXRICAEAE The Beatles is also a really bad name for a band but they managed it.
- coldpie 7y agoI still mentally pronounce it "en-gee-eye-en-ecks".
- throwaway190620 7y agoBeatles is a pun, it's good because of that.
- skyyler 7y agoMuch better than "The Quarrymen".
- tinus_hn 7y agoNot to mention Apple, their record label.
- homonculus1 7y agoWow... "engine x" makes a lot more sense than "en-ginks".
- sundarurfriend 7y agoI used to stare at the name every time and try to pronounce it like a word in an African language (like Ngoba). Felt like such an idiot when I figured out what it's supposed to be.
- crucialfelix 7y agoThat's exactly how I still pronounce it. I still can't pronounce the Asian Ng
- 7y ago
- maxxxxx 7y agoI am not a marketer but it seems to me that people are too concerned about things like naming, icons and others. There are successful products with bad names (it took years to find consensus on pronouncing “azure”). Craigslist is successful without constant redesigns. At a minimum make only name change and then keep it. I have seen products go through several changes and they pretty much always were in decline and it seemed renaming or redesigning was the only idea management had left. In short I don’t think it’s that important.
- cheschire 7y agoThere are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things. -Phil Karlton
- throwaway190620 7y agoI can assure you that you are fundamentally wrong. First impression is exceptionally important and the name/icon is the first thing anyone sees.
- maxxxxx 7y agoI don't know that particular name and the target market. Maybe it's really bad. But if you have a good product in my view the name doesn't matter that much. A lot of people struggle with "sqlite" for example or "Azure" or "OSX".
- notacoward 7y agoI used to work for a company called Revivio. It was quite funny hearing sales/marketing folks try to spell it out over the phone without sounding like they were singing Old McDonald. Thanks, self-styled genius marketing VP!
- SAI_Peregrinus 7y ago"Romeo Echo Victo India Victor India Oscar" (or similar) is probably the only way to not sing that spelling.
- tomahunt 7y ago"Hacker school" rebranded to "The Recurse Center" www.recurse.com
- ergothus 7y agoI dont have a suggestion, but as a datapoints you could look at testacular => karma. It definitely took a while to complete, but was definitely done for similar-sounding reasons. You can use searches to see how long it took, if usage took a hit in the interim, even reach out to that team to see if they have any experiences to share.
- endriju 7y ago'"Third option is to launch a clone of the product with a different name, use it for capturing the ad traffic and then direct it towards the original product. This seems workable, but also a bit too experimental for comfort."' You might also have the option to twist the above - similar to what I did with my product http://exmerg.com http://exmerg.com. I created a copy of it at http://gridoc.com http://gridoc.com and directed the traffic from the old product to the new one. Users gradually started going directly to the new one (gridoc) and the original web is now almost forgotten.
- aasasd 7y ago> > Other than the fact Linux has a cool name, could someone explain why I should use Linux over BSD? > No. That's it. The cool name, that is. We worked very hard on creating a name that would appeal to the majority of people, and it certainly paid off: thousands of people are using linux just to be able to say "OS/2? Hah. I've got Linux. What a cool name". 386BSD made the mistake of putting a lot of numbers and weird abbreviations into the name, and is scaring away a lot of people just because it sounds too technical. — https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit/_tl4WBguewE/x-00eYR0u4AJ https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/comp.unix.pc-clone.32b...
- yongjik 7y agoI'm pretty sure Linus was joking...
- Aromasin 7y agoI'm also pretty sure he's right.
- aasasd 7y agoOn a related notion, I wonder how native English speakers were able to take ‘Windows’ seriously, back in the time when they didn't regularly encounter hundreds of apps with whatever names are left available. In the native language, the brain supposedly fires associations for you before you think consciously about what you hear. Like, do you browse window installation inventory in this program or what?
- rmetzler 7y agoIf your company and the product share a name, rename one for a year and then transition fully to the new name. You could also launch a second product with a different focus but complimentary to you first one. If this gets traction, rebrand your original product to a name based on your second product.
- legitster 7y agoMarketing wankateer here. This is a really great question even for professionals. It's super hard to make a judgement call without knowing the name - keep in mind one of the options here is that you are overreacting. Changing a name can be really, really bad if you don't do it right. But here's a couple of things you should do: - Approach this as a UX problem. Is the name negatively affecting people's ability to approach or remember the brand? Do people actually need to know the exact spelling of your company name in order to discover your product? - Check with existing customers to see how they pronounce the name. Or if they have trouble with it. You may find customers already have their own fun or cute ways to say it, and you can formalize these alternate pronunciations. It can be a great nod to the community. - Can you simplify the name but keep most of it? Kind of like Dunking Donuts going to DNKN. - Others have the excellent idea where you add to the name and slowly turn it into an acronym. Very few people care that UTM actually stands for Urchin Tracking Module. But it gave a nice shoulder period for forums and naming to not be too confusing. If you do go the route of a complete rename - yeah, it's better to rip off the bandaid at once and be done with it. But you had better follow some best practices: - Plan on a HUGE marketing spend afterwards to break in the new name. - Don't just pick something random and trendy out of the grabbag of available domain names. "HxHxHx is now Grokly!" - Spend good money on an SEO expert so you don't royally screw up your web presence.
- throwaway190620 7y agoThis is very helpful. Thanks a bunch!
- mrpotato 7y ago> Approach this as a UX problem. Is the name negatively affecting people's ability to approach or remember the brand? Do people actually need to know the exact spelling of your company name in order to discover your product? Reminds me of the STIHL commercial from a couple of years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWSynIB68rE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWSynIB68rE tl;dw people are interviewed and each person says the company name differently. The video starts the sales pitch with "No matter how you say STIHL..."
- 7y ago
- motohagiography 7y agoWhat you need is an umbrella concept for the product and its needs, named for the new business and marketing view, for which the codebase is a realization of it. Think of it as a set of new abstractions that wrap your product functionality. This is an unexpected application for an ontology like Webprotege. (https://webprotege.stanford.edu/ https://webprotege.stanford.edu/) Essentially, you build an ontology of needs and features and these become the new abstractions, and then reference the code bases that realize them in its nodes and attributes.
- SippinLean 7y agoI worked at Time Warner Cable when they got acquired by Charter, and rebranded to their "Spectrum" cable product. We got a customer email that went: "Great, you went from being The Worst Company to Speculum, you're literally f*cking us!" Point is: rebranding is hard and expensive, but it will get more expensive the longer you wait. If you doubt it's possible for a _mature_ product, remember Kinko's?
- nlawalker 7y ago> If you doubt it's possible for a _mature_ product, remember Kinko's? Yes: it's now called "the copier place" - still frequently shortened to "Kinko's" - because FedEx is where one goes to ship packages (or where one avoids going when they want to ship packages, if they've had any experience there).
- orasis 7y agoIs it “zipper cooter”?
- the-dude 7y agoThe Artist Formerly Known As Prince
- docker_up 7y agoChange the name. Any other solution is foolish and short-sighted. A terrible name is something that is haunt you for the rest of your time at the company. Just have the page links properly managed so that they mention the new name and the old name. In 6 months, no one will care or remember the old name. Internally, you can refer to it as the old name, and you can keep the filenames as is. It's a pain but that probably isn't worth the effort to migrate.
- uberdru 7y agoRip the Band-Aid off! I was in this same situation. It was a product whose name include "SQL". So when you called anyone, you had to say "sequel, by which I mean, just the letters, S-Q-L. . .", which just killed the magic, if there was any to begin with.
- RmDen 7y agoWas that SQLSentry (SentryOne now)?
- matchagaucho 7y agoAcronyms and abbreviations are an option. The name of my previous company was a mouthful, so we simply rebranded using an acronym. Consider companies like "International Business Machines" became IBM. Instead of "HaHaHa", maybe "Ha3 by {CompanyName}"
- jpttsn 7y agoFL Studio pka FruityLoops pulled this off
- alanpage 7y agoDo the rebranding now, before you get so big that you have to spend HUGE sums of money to get people to understand the pronunciation. Don't be Rakuten, who spent millions on a Super Bowl commercial, and gave away thousands in stacks of cash, to get people to understand it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6sxz4vuxRg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6sxz4vuxRg
- iaabtpbtpnn 7y agoAll that commercial did was let me know how important it is to them that I pronounce their silly name the way they want. So I never will! It's raKOOten and it'll be raKOOten forever. Every time I pass by 101 and 92, "oh look it's the raKOOten building!"
- billwear 7y agoYears ago, HP had an incredibly powerful product (secure banking server, using NSA's CMW code), placed in all 325 of the largest banks in the world (not kidding) with a very stupid name. I've forgotten it, but it was a humdinger-darlin'-dumba$$ name that meant something sexually grotesque in Swedish or something. I took over as the product manager in 2000, and immediately went for the rebranding. Granted, HP was large, but the rebranding went absolutely great. First, the customers were actually happy to not have to refer to this mature product by a stupid name, and second, the uptake increased almost immediately to encompass about another 150 large banks, who said, "yeah, we wanted the features, but we weren't going to tell our customers we were protected with the "VirtualVulvaScraper" (or whatever the $#%^&&*@!! name was). It only worked to our advantage to do this, and it paid off at every stage. Never underestimate how relieved a customer will be to see a product they like grow up and start using more elegant branding.
- mosdl 7y agoMongo is another example
- pryelluw 7y agoYes, I've done it before. It wasn't a software product, but it applies. Had a client who had written a collection of really interesting books. They sold well given that the client is a world renowned scientist. The latest book sold well during her live presentations but poorly online/offline. The reason was that the name absolutely sucked. It was just awful. The client wanted to rewrite the book and re-launch it with another awful name. I just told them to rename it, change the cover image to something related to the new name, get a new isbn, and ship it. They worried about about people recognizing the product. And well, it really wasnt a big deal. All materials were updated with the new name and a press release was sent to sort of make it official. No one cared. People loved the new name (I came up with it!). The book sold really well. I told them to use this as a funny anecdote when presenting the book. They did and people loved the story. So, go ahead and change the name, the branding in all related materials (you can even lazy out and include a pop up that states the change and not update anything else), and post a press release. Have everyone refer to it by the new name and get on with sales. If you have any specific questions feel free to reply or email me.
- tones411 7y agoRealTimeBoard recently did a name change to Miro. I did a search for "miro realtimeboard" and saw an ad that said "Miro, formerly Realtimeboard...". Also, check out their post about the name change: https://miro.com/blog/features/realtimeboard-is-now-miro/ https://miro.com/blog/features/realtimeboard-is-now-miro/
- robodale 7y agoFogBugz
- dirktheman 7y agoMatomo handled this very well, they communicate 'Matomo formerly known as Piwik'. On a slightly related note: I uses to work for a travel company that merged and got a new name that was horribly unpronounceable. Good luck answering the telephone with 'TQ3 Travel Solutions' when English isn't your native tongue. I have some choice words for whoever came up with that name...
- blue_devil 7y agoAdd something to the current name to make it sound "nicer"? A recent example I came across for a mature product is "Goeuro" --> "Omio". They use the "formerly" approach.
- DoreenMichele 7y agoTLDR of the Aflac story, FWIW: They were founded in 1955 under the name American Family Life Insurance Company in Columbus, Georgia. At some point early on, some other insurance company headquartered in some other state had the exact same name. Internal stories at the company indicate the name dispute was settled with "a gentleman's coin toss" and Aflac lost. So they changed the name to American Family Life Assurance Company. So that's why it's Aflac and not Aflic, because American Family Life Assurance Company is still their legal name. Aflac is just the acronym. When they decided to do a rebranding, they contemplated the cost and hassle of redoing the name legally in all fifty states (because insurance is highly regulated) and weren't thrilled. They ultimately went with the acronym, which avoided the need to do a legal name change. Kind of like calling someone Bill instead of William. Everyone knows their legal name is actually William and no one really cares. There is no deception going on. Then they set a goal of getting better name recognition. They had really poor numbers for an industry that isn't "sexy" to begin with. They hired a marketing firm and tested two initial commercials. One had some TV star and test figures suggested it would improve name recognition to 40 percent, which was in line with industry standards. The other was the famous duck mocking the fact that no one knew who they were. It was a much riskier approach, but offered the potential to get name recognition up to 90 percent. That's what they went with and it became a household name. All because the marketing people they hired went "It sounds like a duck quacking" and the new CEO, son of one of the founders and a sales guy, was willing to take a risk.
- Jugurtha 7y agoI like how the balena team executed with a name change and an open source release.[0] They went over the reason of the name change (evolution of scope) and clearly stated they wanted to introduce the new name with a splash: > We wanted to introduce the balena name to the world with a splash, and what better way to do that than releasing our open source server. Also, the OpenERP --> Odoo change.[1] [0]: https://www.balena.io/blog/resin-io-changes-name-to-balena-releases-open-source-edition/ https://www.balena.io/blog/resin-io-changes-name-to-balena-r... [1]: https://www.odoo.com/blog/odoo-news-5/post/the-odoo-story-56 https://www.odoo.com/blog/odoo-news-5/post/the-odoo-story-56
- relaunched 7y agoRe-branding is the best option, if you can afford the cost and work. If not, try introducing a new logo, that might call out the name (or part of it) and start branding that. Then, you can use that logo in sponsorships. Good luck!