Consumer Name Based Marketing – Alex Likes Apples, Ben Likes Bananas
Economics, Marketing, SEM November 14th, 2007Last Wednesday Newsweek published an interesting article about how people prefer things or are likely to be associated with things that begin with the same letter as the first letter in their name. For instance an Alex is more likely to grade better and receive an A on a homework assignment than a Dan. Brian is more likely to attend Brandeis, Babson, or Brown University. Tom is more likely to date a Tara, Tina, or Teresa than a Lindsey, Elizabeth, or Kelly.
So my question is, how could this be applied to SEO, SEM, SMO, marketing or online sales in general? One thing you could do is create content or an affiliate program based on the most popular names in English speaking countries. While doing a quick search on most popular US names, this is what comes up as the top five for boys and girls from 1960 – 1990:
The five most popular names of the 1960’s were:
Boys: Michael, David, John, James, Robert
Girls: Lisa, Mary, Susan, Karen, Kimberly
The five most popular names of the 1970’s were:
Boys: Michael, Christopher, Jason, David, James
Girls: Jennifer, Amy, Melissa, Michelle, Kimberly
The five most popular names of the 1980’s were:
Boys: Michael, Christopher, Matthew, Joshua, David
Girls: Jessica, Jennifer, Amanda, Ashley, Sarah
The five most popular names of the 1990’s were:
Boys: Michael, Christopher, Matthew, Joshua, Jacob
Girls: Jessica, Ashley, Emily, Sarah, Samantha
So from this data we could surmise that THE most popular names of children born between 1960 – 1990 start with the letters (M, J, S, A, K).
There are loads of successful ad campaigns that happened when these children became old enough to becoming consumers. Let’s look at some successful ad campaigns from the 1970’s –2000’s that start with or contain the letters (M, J, S, A, K):
Alka-Seltzer, 1970’s
Miller Lite Beer, “Tastes great, less filling”, 1974
Burger King, “Have it your way”, 1973
American Express, “Do you know me?”, 1975
Chanel, “Share the fantasy”, 1979
AT&T, “Reach out and touch someone”, 1979
Molson Beer, Laughing Couple, 1980s
U.S. Army, “Be all that you can be”, 1981
Absolute Vodka: Absolute Bottle, 1981
Apple Computer “1984”, 1984
Levi Jeans, “501 blues”, 1984
Bartles & Jaymes, “Frank and Ed”, 1985
Saturn, “A different kind of company, A different kind of car.”, 1989
California Milk Processor Board, “Got Milk?”, 1993
ESPN Sports, “This is SportsCenter”, 1995
Obviously we would need better data than this to see a relationship between sales and a correlation between the first letter of someone’s name and the products or services they choose to purchase. Based on the data from Newsweek I’d be willing to bet that this information could prove useful for marketing but I don’t think I’m ready to start selling services or writing content whose names or titles only begin with (M, J, S, A, K). However, please note the spelling of the Newsweek article’s title. Think that was intentional?
Recent Comments