MARKETING AFRICA ISSUE 12/16 | Page 28

MARKETING EVOLUTION WHAT’S IN A NAME? By Marion Wakahe M y name is Marion. A name when mentioned will make me turn in the direction of its origination, a name I immediately note if on a book, television screen, etc. (and spend a considerable amount of time looking at, probably 10-20 seconds before I shift my focus elsewhere), a name that makes it easy to relate with people sharing the same name, and I believe most importantly a name if misspelled or mispronounced gets me deeply offended. There is more to a name than just a combination of letters. Names are our unique identifiers; during the years of our existence we mould our names (consciously or subconsciously) through our personalities and the outstanding characters that we are associated with. One would say for example “Marion is very generous” and therefore when one thinks of Marion one thinks of a very generous person. To a large extent we guard our names realizing that the person cannot be separated from the name nor the name from the person. In his book “How to Win Friends and Influence People” Dale Carnegie notes that one of the quickest ways to win a heart is to remember a name and salespeople who manage to do this achieve significantly higher sales figures than those who do not. The reason for this is very simple; the most important thing to me is my name and the fact that you’ve made the effort to remember my name means you understand what ‘‘ There is more to a name than just a combination of letters. Names are our unique identifiers; during the years of our existence we mould our names (consciously or subconsciously) through our personalities and the outstanding characters that we are associated with.’’ 26 MAL 12/16 ISSUE is important to me and therefore by understanding that my name is important to me you also understand other things that are important to me and so obviously what you are selling must be important and I should consider it. The question then is “Why are names so important?” There are a number of reasons as listed below: Names simplify the process of description allowing for the creation of a visual identity to that person or object. Imagine a world with no names. It would be daunting going around describing things e.g. yesterday I went to the national park and saw this animal that was huge with very big ears, a long trunk and tusks. At the end of the day it’s easier to just say I saw an elephant! Names address our inherent nature to own something that is unique to us and that cannot be taken away from us. I’ve heard it in a number of movies with lines such as “You can take away my wife, my children, my wealth, my company, etc but you can’t take away my name” or “at the end of the day all I have is my name.” Every person’s inherent desire is to own, names serve this purpose very