How to Troubleshoot Apps for the Modern Connected Worker
Marketing Language: Make Your Brand a Verb
1. Marketing language: Make your brand a verb
Rebecca Moody, with Diana Caplinska and Chris Skillicor
Admap
May 2012
2.
Title: Marketing language: Make your brand a verb
Author(s): Rebecca Moody, with Diana Caplinska and Chris Skillicor
Source: Admap
Issue: May 2012
Marketing language: Make your brand a verb
Rebecca Moody, Diana Caplinska and Chris Skillicor
Euro RSCG London
Language and choice of words are a powerful part of a brand's armoury and can propel the brand from a single ad
into common parlance.
Mark Twain once said: "The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter – 'tis the
difference between the lightning bug and the lightning."
Before any idea, before any script or any line, comes the right word. Words are building blocks for brands that, when chosen
correctly, can translate feelings and thoughts into ideas that can be shared. Gustav Flaubert used an expression: le mot juste,
the exact right word in the exact right position. As any planner or copywriter who has sat flicking through Roget's for inspiration
will testify, it's a burning desire to find le mot juste: the one word that will ignite the kind of 'lightning' ideas that spread like
cultural wildfire.
Richard Dawkins coined the term 'meme': "A noun that conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation."
Dawkins points out examples of memes as: "tunes, catchphrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches",
cultural units that propagate themselves leaping from mind to mind.
Linguistic memes often prompt a significance that becomes even more recognisable and meaningful than their initial
denotation ('are you a Mac?'). And that says much about our work. At least 50% of what we do is words, in some way related
to language: be it verbal or visual. And in this era of highly conversant social media, the creation of 'memetic' language adds
real marketing value. The challenge is to create the kind of linguistic genius (rather than 'vanilla' buzzwords) that helps brands
take a real grip.
And while success cannot always be planned for (some random ideas will always take off, innit), we have observed three key
ways to achieve the best return on your choice of words.
Downloaded from warc.com
2
3.
Dulux: 'Let's Colour' sparked conversations in social media from Bangkok to Morocco
1. Extract added value in your name
The original Oxford English Dictionary took 35 years to craft. It is evolving at an unprecedented rate as new linguistic ideas
emerge and cross-fertilise via the web. Language is a marker for change and the growth of vocabulary is a primary indicator of
cultural transformation. Arguably, language itself accounts for the humungous leaps in technological and social change we are
witnessing as new verbs like 'tweet', 'digg' and 'skype' provide rapid translation and instant transmission of new phenomena
into pop culture. New tools stimulate emergence of new behaviours and a new lexicon. The latest round of OED updates even
included the emoticon '<3' and the acronym 'LOL'.
Google has entered the cultural lexicon as the definitive noun for internet search engines and it is also a verb – 'did you google
it?' Steven Pinker, the Harvard academic and author, states that the way we use words is a manifestation of the way we think
about and interact with the world. To google is more than 'to search'; it is 'to search for something on the internet' and to
'consume' that piece of information. Even before its official addition to the OED in June 2006, the American Dialect Society
proclaimed 'google' the most useful word of 2002.
At the very heart of many of the digital superbrands like Google is what we call an 'Intuitive Purpose' by which we mean a
unique and highly useful reason for being beyond pure functionality. Subsequently the brand's denotation becomes the very
encapsulation of its benefit for consumers. To 'Sky-Plus' and 'Facebook' are synonymous with their purpose.
And it is not just the tech brands that have engineered such linguistic value. Reckitt Benckiser has brought loaded cultural
meaning to numerous successful FMCG brands – for example, we now regularly 'Vanish' our carpets, and 'Dettol' kitchen
surfaces. As an industry we have long put store in 'brand as verb' and it remains just as powerful.
2. Create language that stirs reactions
Downloaded from warc.com
3
4.
As cultures merge, blend and morph, linguistic cross-flow brings an expanding global community together. And as information
is exchanged in real time, and content is produced by the second, the right use of language can lead to global viral
phenomena.
Kolaveri Di, the Tamil-English song officially released in 2011 to promote the Tamil language film 3, went instantly viral. It
became the most-searched YouTube video in India and an internet phenomenon across global Indian communities with more
than one million shares on Facebook in less than a week and 39 million views in less than three months. The question on
everyone lips? 'What is this Kolaveri Di?' Ironically it was the impenetrability of the Tamil dialect in question here that triggered
the wildfire and sold the film.
'The Most Interesting Man in the World' campaign by Euro RSCG New York for Dos Equis beer has become a worldwide
internet meme with diverse people spontaneously exploiting the narrative formula 'I don't always do X, but when I do, I Y' in
their own versions of the ads. Memetic interpretations include 'The Most Interesting Warcraft Player in the World' and a recent
homage from Antonio Banderas in Puss in Boots: evidence that the right language can create a valuable multiplier effect
which, in the case of Dos Equis, led to a 20% increase in sales in a declining US market.
Dulux's 'Let's Colour' is one of our own Euro RSCG London examples of a linguistic catalyst that helped drive a global CSR
coup. This invitation to 'regenerate your world with colour', neatly and resonantly captures the joy of adding colour to people's
lives. Two hundred thousand litres of paint have now been donated to community painting projects in more than 20 countries
and conversations have been sparked in social media from Bangkok to Morocco. In 2011 the campaign won an inaugural 'Ads
Worth Spreading' award from TED, igniting further positive social commentary and corporate PR for AkzoNobel.
Would we have seen the same success without the pure punch and evocation of those two little words?
3. Get savvy with the word search
Resonant language has the power to catapult brands into the hearts and psyche of the audience and, in a context where SEO
is of increasing importance, to a well-positioned rank in a search engine. Brand triggers are now competitively ranked,
optimised and owned. Never has the choice of words been more important, in an age when search engines' bots and
algorithms are the filters to your brand.
In the world of the SEO strategy, words have a market value and there is a clear benefit in using smart words when the race to
buy generics can be costly.
Faced with Google's search stranglehold, comparethemarket.com had to look beyond the expensive and generic AdWord
'market' to effectively use its marketing budget. 'Meerkat' was visually similar, but a fraction of the cost, and set the direction for
the future of the campaign. And awareness of comparethemarket "propelled from relative obscurity to pole position in its
category", according to David Penn of Conquest. The rest is the stuff of advertising legend.
We took a similar view for VO5 Extreme Style. The latest ad in the VO5 'Break the Mould' campaign, 'The Pliktisijiteur
Pageant', saw multiple pieces of shareable multimedia content released over time aimed to achieve quality engagement with
an efficient reach. We advised Unilever to avoid chasing the generic AdWord 'haircare'. Instead we turned to the
unpronounceable 'name of the village' and created a branded experience with both a distinctive name and a distinctive search
property that has so far attracted more than 250,000 unique YouTube viewers.
Downloaded from warc.com
4
