I was just reading an interesting article about company branding and logos. Graphic Identity Design can go about creating a logo in two basic ways: create an abstract or image-based symbol that identifies with the company or brand, or use a part of or the whole company name to create a logo. Nike's "swoosh" logo, for example, falls into this first category, as do many car companies' including Chrysler, Mercedes, and Toyota. In the second category you have logos for ExxonMobil (which also has an associated logo of type 1), American Airlines, and General Electric. Of course, this first category doesn't really involve linguists, but the second category has some interesting parallels.
Some of these companies use the whole company name as their logo, while some choose a nickname or initials. From the article, "...what about logos that aren't full names, like initials? Here is where you have to be careful. They only make good logos if they are nicknames of an established company name. General Electric is a long name, so GE makes an excellent logo, because it's what people will use as a nickname." (Jack Trout) This naturally begs the question, when is it OK for a company to shorten their name as opposed to using it in its entirety? "...if people tend to use your full name, that's your name and that's what should be your logo. Metropolitan Life Insurance can be MetLife(nyse:MET- news-people). But New York Life will always be New York Life." (Ibid) Here's where I see linguists coming in. I think it would be an extremely interesting bit of research for a linguist to see what people tend to call different companies by, whether it's the whole name, an abbreviation or a nickname. Going by the principle that what moniker people use will not by and large be affected by what a company decides to use, a researcher could amass a large amount of statistical data and eventually come up with a set of rules that describe these tendencies. Some questions that I think would form the center of a study like this are:
How many words will people allow in a full company name in regular conversation?
What impact does the popularity and/or success of the company have on the name people use for it?
Are there any syllable-type constraints on the rules?
What influence does rhyming or alliteration have?
How much does it matter what the other company names in the same industry (or other categorical grouping) are?
I could see this as an extremely powerful study to have for marketers.
Some of these companies use the whole company name as their logo, while some choose a nickname or initials. From the article, "...what about logos that aren't full names, like initials? Here is where you have to be careful. They only make good logos if they are nicknames of an established company name. General Electric is a long name, so GE makes an excellent logo, because it's what people will use as a nickname." (Jack Trout) This naturally begs the question, when is it OK for a company to shorten their name as opposed to using it in its entirety? "...if people tend to use your full name, that's your name and that's what should be your logo. Metropolitan Life Insurance can be MetLife(nyse:MET- news-people). But New York Life will always be New York Life." (Ibid) Here's where I see linguists coming in. I think it would be an extremely interesting bit of research for a linguist to see what people tend to call different companies by, whether it's the whole name, an abbreviation or a nickname. Going by the principle that what moniker people use will not by and large be affected by what a company decides to use, a researcher could amass a large amount of statistical data and eventually come up with a set of rules that describe these tendencies. Some questions that I think would form the center of a study like this are:
How many words will people allow in a full company name in regular conversation?
What impact does the popularity and/or success of the company have on the name people use for it?
Are there any syllable-type constraints on the rules?
What influence does rhyming or alliteration have?
How much does it matter what the other company names in the same industry (or other categorical grouping) are?
I could see this as an extremely powerful study to have for marketers.
