Ever Wondered Why Brands Use Misspelled Words In Their Names?

It seems like naming their brand correctly, with widely-accepted spellings is a herculean tasks for companies. There are so many brands that actually use the wrong spellings of English words. And you would be surprised to know that there is a whole lot of marketing strategy that goes into deciding names.

Every business wants to make their brand look unique, so this uniqueness starts with their name. In a bid to make their brand names creative, they choose to misspell names. Let’s discuss what the thought process is of the marketers while picking brand names.

1. Human brain remembers unique things for longer

Can you remember that vanilla ice cream from the ice cream parlour? Of course not. But you will always have the memories of eating a Turkish ice cream that’s everything but commonplace. Similarly, when you read a misspelled name of a common word in a brand name, you tend to remember it for longer. This creates a memorable image of the brand in our mind. It helps the brand in taking the first step towards getting people’s attention.

2. Trying to stand out

What every brand wants is to stand out among the rest of the lot. They want to create a unique identity of their brand among people. Even before the business model, they try to achieve this uniqueness by their brand names. For example, popular social media websites and applications like Reddit, Flickr, Tumblr, Digg, etc. are etched in the minds of people not only for their utility but also their distinctive names.

Dropping vowels, introducing a ‘ly’ or ‘er’ at the end, etc are some of the commonly used ways to make the brand names unique. It has become a common trend by startups to make stand out of the crowd. Apart from creating a creative image of their brand, it also helps them shorten their URLs, which always helps them in business.

3. Incorrect spellings help companies to get domain names easily

Imagine trying to get your hands on a domain name with a commonplace spelling. It gets not only tedious but is also priced exorbitantly. Businesses save money and hard work by naming their brands with unusual naming conventions.

4. There can be an interesting story behind it!

Probably the copywriter committed a glaring spelling blunder that resulted into a superb marketing strategy, or the business founder had some high school troubles spelling the name right or so on. There can be some unheard stories behind why certain companies spell their brand names wrong.

 

Founder of an Indian startup, Nwplying Utsav Agarwal explained why they chose to misspell the words Now Playing. He said,

“Nowplaying described the product in its simplest form, but it was too common a hashtag for us to possibly differentiate ourselves and create a brand around it – hence the term nwplyng, i.e. ‘nowplaying’ sans vowels,” he says. “Plus, the domain name nwplyng.com was easily available.”

Similarly, Amanda Singleton who owns Qustodian in the UK explains the reason behind the unique spelling of their startup. She said,

“The name came about because in a world of ever-increasing concerns about data being misused, we see ourselves as the custodians of people’s data. Qustodian was the closest available domain name!”

However, you will be surprised to know that some of these marketing strategies can actually backfire. Utsav Agarwal says that he wouldn’t recommend this naming convention to anyone else. He says,

“From my experience with nwplyng, I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. Users misspell it way too often, even the ones using it regularly – and that means you lose out on network effect and app downloads.”

Thus, one thing to take home from this article is that; while being creative, make sure that you’re not moving too far from the reality. Similarly, with the brand name, don’t try to move too far from the original spelling.