December 20, 2006

Curious George: Cool sounding words. Is there a lexicon of cool-sounding words that can serve as a title for an advanced version of a product? See inside...

I am tasked with finding a cool descriptor word, and thesauruses aren't really designed for this. A classic example is done with metals: "gold", "platinum", "titanium", and even "iridium". Credit card companies like that scale. The software market likes words like "elite", "professional", "advanced", "enterprise", etc. I'm more interested in a list that I just might be overlooking, rather than specific suggestions. I am sure such a list has been done, but my Google-fu, well, you know...

posted by rolypolyman 17 years ago
  • It might be easier if we know at least some general things about the product. A clue as to target market would be nice, maybe if the product is animal, vegetable or mineral, some sort of indication as to what it's used for. At least that's what a non maketeer would think. Fes, we need you!
  • Buzz Words for Advertising and eZines (Google "buzzwords" ...you'll get tons of crap useful information.
  • Go the Hollywood route... KONG SON OF KONG RETURN OF SON OF KONG RETURN OF SON OF KONG 2: THE REVENGE etc. Personally, I would buy any software package to whose name was appended the phrase "...2: THE REVENGE," whether I needed it or not.
  • No, I'd prefer "...2: Electric Boogaloo" myself. I can tell you what NOT to use: ...2.0 ...on a Plane ...If I Did It ...on the Sunset Strip ...Federline ...Stay the Course ...with Green Onions and, of course ...Vista.
  • I'm not sure that there's a list of this type. Wikipedia has interesting sections on the C++ name and C# name, both of which I've found intriguing (I though of C# as "C hash" for a while, as all articles I read correctly used the octothorpe). Some ideas in advanced product names are: complicated, complex, powerful super, turbo (engine analogies might be interesting?) customizable, toolkit "power user", experienced deluxe, expensive, a la carte, all inclusive complete, comprehensive, encompassing universal, global, panoply
  • I think obfuscatory verbiage can have cachet, with impressive but essentially meaningless words/phrases such as "paradigm" "new parameters" and "experientially optimized" (all of which I've seen used in the past 24 hours). I'm with path, we need more to work with. Say you're planning on marketing a miniature lawn mower that cuts your hair while you work on the computer. You might try time-proven basic phraseology like "cutting edge" (okay, sorry about that), "revolutionary," "(time, money)-saving" and the always irresistible "affordably-priced". Maybe you could convince the manufacturer to add a vibrator and name the thing "BuzzKut" or something similarly catchy. "Catch a Buzz while you work with our revolutionary new paradigm in hair styling... Save time with this experientally optimized, affordably-priced device..." etc. Hmmm. This is giving me ideas. I'll get back to you.
  • MonkeyFilter: Maybe you could convince the manufacturer to add a vibrator You thought I was going for "obfuscatory verbiage" didn't you. Well I was. Til I realized you were waiting for that. Ha!
  • I couldn't find such a list but found some interesting blogs by marketers searching for things like "branding language" and "marketing language". You would think there'd be a useful list out there, huh? Who works in marketing around here?