In a health magazine to which I subscribe, a full page ad showing a woman in hat, sweater and mittens stopped me cold. “Find relief this cold and flu season. Look to Xlear,” read the headline and subhead.

Not only did this pitch seem badly timed for April, I wondered why in the world would someone name a cold and flu remedy what would most logically be pronounced “ex-lear.” The only associations that came up for me for the “lear” portion of the name were Lear jets and King Lear of Shakespeare fame, neither of which seemed like a plausible reference.

My wondering turned to incredulity when I read on: “Xlear (pronounced “clear”) is the only saline nasal spray with Xylitol, clinically proven to…” Pronounced “clear”?!

In the name Xylitol, the letter X is obviously pronounced like a Z, following the pattern of “xylophone.” Normally a brand using an unusual first letter would want users to mimic the sound of the key ingredient in the sound of the brand name. This would make Xlear sound like “zlear” – odd, but with a rationale and precedents.

Yet the company tells us to pronounce the initial X in Xlear like a K! I pulled the American Heritage College Dictionary down from my shelf and confirmed, as I suspected, that not one of the English words listed there as beginning with X had a recommended pronounciation of K.

(“Xhosa,” the name of a Bantu tribe, is pronounced “Kosa,” and it has an alternate spelling of “Xosa,” but not one in 10 million English speakers would ever have run across that usage.)

Imagine telling someone over the phone “Clear – spelled with an X.” Where could the X go? It would be as weird as telling them “Gear – spelled with a S” or “Year – spelled with an M.”

Don\’t hobble a product with a pronunciation that mismatches the spelling so wildly that no one would ever guess how to say it correctly. A good rule of thumb is that if you need to tell customers how to say the name, it’s a poor choice. People who can’t pronounce a name are often reluctant to ask for the product, and when they barrel on ahead and get it wrong, those serving them may not recognize what they’re looking for. And any weirdly spelled name, pronounceable or not, certainly cuts down on word-of-mouth recommendations.

Other examples I’ve run across in recent years include Cuil, an Internet search engine that claimed the name was an old Irish word for “knowledge.” Every press release noted that the name was pronounced “cool.” They had to say that, or people would have been talking about “coo-eel.” Unsurprisingly, the site quietly disappeared from the Net after about two years.

Also ill-fated was a company called K-III Communications, which people were never sure how to pronounce. Should it be said as “K – I – I – I,” or even “Kill”? The firm’s fortunes lifted when it renamed itself Primedia.

Still not convinced? Do a Google search to see how much ink has been devoted to the question of how to pronounce “Touareg,” a car model from Volkswagen. You do not want the buzz about your product to be about its pronunciation! Avoid that with a name that is intuitive, easy and unambiguous to say out loud when seeing it for the first time.

Author Bio: Marcia Yudkin is Head Stork of Named At Last, which brainstorms catchy business or product names and tag lines. For a systematic process of coming up with a snappy new name, download, free, \”19 Steps to the Perfect Company Name, Product Name or Tag Line\”: http://www.namedatlast.com/19steps.htm

Category: Marketing
Keywords: name,naming,business,company,product,branding,creation,generation,generating,spell,spelling,sound