The marketing goal is differentiation from people's mental conception of the base product. They named the one iPad Mini, because they want people to think "sma

The marketing goal is differentiation from people's mental conception of the base product. They named the one iPad Mini, because they want people to think "smaller than the iPad". They named the other iPad Air because they want people to think "lighter than the iPad". Which suggests two interesting points: 1. the public at large has a mental concept of how much "the iPad" weighs. 2. enough people think it's 'too heavy', to justify a rebranding to make them reconsider. A simple marketing story of "the new one is thinner / lighter" wasn't considered sufficient.