If you were born in the 1980s, how many Jennifers and Jasons did you go to school with? A lot, right? And then gradually, those names fell out of favor and were replaced by Ashley, Aidan, Madison, Ethan. Jennifer and Jason don’t even make the top 50 anymore. Other names have been more consistently popular, however. Think Michael, Daniel, Elizabeth.
What’s this got to do with marketing? Well, a new study looked at the speed at which baby names rose to popularity and also how quickly they declined. It turns out names that skyrocket to popularity are also fastest to fall into obscurity. The same behavioral drivers surrounding baby naming can translate into product and brand adoption. According to the study’s authors:
Fads tend to be viewed negatively, the authors point out. “And if people think that sharply increasing [popularity] will be short lived, they may avoid such items to avoid doing something that may later be seen as a flash in the pan.”
The paper points to examples in the music industry of new artists who bolt to the top of sales charts, but realize lower overall sales than those whose popularity grows more slowly. “This seemingly counterintuitive finding has important implications. One is that faster adoption is not only linked to faster abandonment, but may also hurt overall success,” the authors write.
Despite the excitement it generates for a few days, the video your brand launched that “went viral” on YouTube may be entirely forgotten in a few months or weeks and ultimately do nothing for long-term growth. But if you take a slower, measured approach to building a strong community of fans, your brand may remain popular for a lot longer. There’s no viral marketing campaign around Moleskine notebooks, for example, but the brand has built a dedicated group of fans that it continues to nurture and support.
Don’t mistake faddish-popularity as an indicator of long-term brand success. Fads rise to popularity quickly without any real reason – they’re not usually fulfilling a customer need (did anyone need snap-bracelets in elementary school in 1990?).
Instead of focusing on how to get as much buzz for your product or organization as fast as possible, think of how to meticulously build a community. It takes longer and can be more work, but the reward is much greater.
No one wants to be a flash in the pan. Not even Jennifer and Jason.
Interesting study… not sure I agree with hypothesis of “flash in the pan” with the baby names. Think is a lot simpler than that. Mom’s don’t like to name their kids the same name as other mom’s have named their kid. So as a name get popular quickly, you get a critical mass of liked named children, which then leads to that name very quickly falling out of the popular club because all the new moms are avoid it.
Think you see this similar trend in fashion/music/alcohol and even technology — early adopters adopt, it becomes hip (hits the tipping point) and then because “everyone” is doing it/drinking it/using it, you start to get a boomerang effect where individuals no longer adopt because they don’t want to look like lemmings. At the same time, the early adopters begin to migrate to the next big thing at a faster pace because their personal ego requires them to be “out front.”
What do you think?
@TomMartin
Thanks for the comment, Tom. I agree with most of what you said above, but I don’t think it necessarily contradicts what the researchers found. It is a tipping-point issue with names like you mentioned, but I think they were more interested in the rate at which a name tips and how that impacts the overall popularity over time. There’s another passage in the article I didn’t quote in my post but maybe should have:
“According to Berger, parents’ attitudes toward naming their children reflect a fundamental tension between an individual’s desire to conform and fit in with others, while at the same time preserving a distinctive identity. ‘We want to be both similar and different. We don’t want to be the only person in a red polka-dot shirt and crazy hair — nobody dresses like that. But at the same time, we don’t want to wear exactly the same thing as everyone else in the office.’ Similarly, no parent wants to walk into the first grade classroom and find 16 kids with the same first name as his or her own child, he adds.”
This echoes a lot of what you said in your comment – not wanting to be a lemming. But I think the real interesting part of the research is the idea that speed of adoption can inhibit total overall adoption. The study showed that the faster a name (brand, product, etc.) achieved its meteoric rise and saturation or tipping point, the fewer people overall ended up adopting it. Early adopters will always eventually move on from any brand to something newer and cooler, but the crux is how long before they do and how many other people adopt the brand before it begins it’s decline – and how fast that decline in popularity ultimately happens.
Amy,
I’m one of those people who graduated with 9 Jessica’s, even in a class of 400 that’s quite a few! Now, I don’t know anyone under 10yrs named Jessica. I think part of that comes from the fact that as our generation is having kids, they want their kid to be “unique” since they were not, but in doing so, have created a whole different situation where there are 8 different spellings of the same name (think Aiden, Ayden, Aiedan, etc) in a classroom and who knows if it’s a boy or girl?
The same goes for brands and companies. They try to be different, but in the end, no matter how it’s spelled, drunk, ate, read, etc. it all ends up being the same thing. For instance, Twitter and FB are starting to be too similar. Some similar features might be nice, but if they end up being mirror images of each other, they will fall out of favor and everyone will move on. A rose by any other name…..
@MiniJ
I plan to agree with the fact that moms hear a cute name, and name their kid that – they don’t really think about if another kid has the same name.
I went by Fernando in school because we had 6 Laurens in my graduating class – and 3 played sports with me. You’re right, we are always trying to be different from the other brands – but in the end, we are the same.
Loved this post. Great job Amy!
Great reminder here Amy. I think people tend to get caught up in buzz very often in this industry. As a recent graduate and someone who is new to the marketing/media space, I definitely put too much focus on buzz as that’s what we grew up learning. We learned that the most talked about is the most successful.
Depending on the situation, building a great deal of buzz can in fact make a small brand into a big one. It’s not necessarily something you can rely on though. A long-term methodical approach is necessary. Sometimes the things you do will get a lot of buzz, and sometimes it won’t.
@DavidSpinks
As a Jason, I take offense to the above post!! Just kidding, in fact I think that it’s a great illustration of how fads can come and go, but a well crafted, well positioned brand (and company) can last a long, long time. It may even evolve slightly (and slowly) over time, but if you take the time to build up a loyal fanbase to begin with, what you then do will almost always resonate positively. And it is amazing to see how “faddish” names have been over the past few decades, and viral marketing campaigns also follow this pattern. A great analogy and a good way to look at the overall issue of long term vs. short term social media/marketing gains.
@jaykeith
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