I have to thank my new best friend Sekhar in India for this contribution. It’s an HP commercial currently running in his country. In just 30 seconds, it demonstrates the absurdity of complex product naming.
The narrator for the spot is speaking to us human-to-human, until someone sticks a gun in his back and forces him to say:
My HP Pavillion dv5-1221tx Notebook PC for high-definition entertainment tells my story. What’s yours?
Well, whatever my story is, I’m sure I can say it quicker than that. Pardon me for counting, but that PC moniker runs a full 13 syllables! I suspect this is a record that will stand for some time. Though I don’t doubt that new contenders are warming up in the wings…
Update 2:00pm EST 11.06.09: I was having some fun with this one, but I probably should have made a serious point. Every advertiser has to be extremely realistic about what a viewer will take away from an ad. It is unrealistic to believe anyone will remember this ridiculous product name. It is very realistic to believe they might remember HP makes a cool notebook. Forcing this crap into the commercial only distracts from the good stuff. Whoever insisted on this needs to be taken out to the shed.
Tags: hp, hp pavillion, intel, ken segall, pavillion
Cut! Cut! It’s the dv5-1211tx, not the dv5-1221tx.
As a consumer…. who knows what the hell the A1303 is, or what the Nokia 5530, 6760, 6790, or 7100 is.
Apple has learned this lesson and I often wonder why other companies haven’t… I mean, it makes everything easier when you give it a recognizable name.
In recent years, Blackberry has learned this lesson… with the Tour, the Storm, the Curve, and the Pearl… although they still add the number in at the end… like the Storm2 9550. Their names are also really meaningless and tells us nothing about the products… but it’s better then just cryptic letter and number combinations.
Apple names tell us something about the product… and when we learn more about the product… we can really relate the name with the features and we retain that knowledge. Like the MacBook Air… when I first heard about it… I was not sure what “Air” meant… but now I know it’s lighter. I know that the MacBook Pro is faster and more powerful for the professional user.
By the way…. I’m using the A1286 and the A1303 right now to type this post on the internet. The A1286 is my MacBook Pro and the A1303 is my iPhone 3GS… I love free tethering :)
I still lement for the old days of my Apple PowerPC 8100/80.
@Kesey:
Ha! Looking back, it’s hard to believe we were working with the Quadra 610, Performa 6400 and all the rest. Apple really did go through a dark time.
Then there was:
Apple II
Apple II Plus
Apple II Europlus and J-Plus
Apple IIe
Apple IIc
Apple IIGS
Apple IIc Plus
What is wrong with you, people?
You are forgetting the:
Apple QuickTake 100
Apple QuickTake 150
Apple QuickTake 200
Macintosh 128k
Macintosh 512k/512ke
Macintosh XL
Macintosh SE/SE FDHD
Macintosh SE/30
Macintosh IIX
Macintosh IIcx
Macintosh IIci
Macintosh IIsi
Macintosh IIvi
Macintosh IIvx
Macintosh II fx
Macintosh LC
Macintosh LC II
Macintosh LC III
Macintosh LC III+
Macintosh LC 475
Macintosh LC 520
Macintosh LC 550
Macintosh LC 575
Macintosh LC 580
Macintosh LC 630
I think you get my point…
Actually, well though product names is a pretty recent thing for Apple. It just started with the Think Different campaign, of which Ken must be proud.
;o)
It is always easy to complex the things and very difficult to simplify them. And easy to add things/features/models but when one has to eliminate it, it takes whole lot of effort.
Maybe most of us taking an easiest path available!
HP needs to simplicate things.
haha! say that 5 times fast.
it’s like the guy’s voice/speed changes to just to get that full name in there.
Computer is personal again… especially when it’s labeled with a name such as dv5-1221tx! :-D
I think all companies should adopt this product naming sequence.. not only APPLE… I guess that prior article i read where you said that APPLE does like money, but really isnt that much of a concern unless they are at the height of innovation really speaks out alot of the Company. Whereas everyone else just looks at figures..
Thank God Microsoft Products have names to :-P
It also takes him about half the commercial just to say the name of the product! Ridiculous.