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Does This Name Suck? Not Really

Some brand names suck. Does the name "Sur La Table?" After all, no one can pronounce it.  You might be surprised to hear what Rebeca concluded in this #tellthetruths video.

Does This Name Suck? SUR LA TABLE

August 5, 2021 By Rebeca Arbona

Some brand names suck. Does the name “Sur La Table?” After all, no one can pronounce it.  You might be surprised to hear what Rebeca concluded in this #tellthetruths video.

Does This Name Suck? SUR LA TABLE

This video originally appeared in LinkedIn

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TRANSCRIPT:

– Hey guys, it’s time for another, “Does This Name Suck?” So do you know this name, and how do you even say it? A lot of people don’t speak French and I’ve heard them say things like “sue la tay-bull. It’s actually Sur La Table. And you sound like a bit of an asshole when you say it correctly in French, in the middle of an English sentence.

So those of us who speak French feel pretty much just as awkward about what do I say now, as those of us who have no idea how to pronounce it, clearly that’s a recipe for disaster, a name that sucks, right? Not so fast. So if you think about what this store is trying to do, it’s a high-end homewares and house, I don’t know it’s called it’s like kitchen stuff, but it’s kitchen stuff up here.

Kitchen stuff that either they sell it at Walmart for one 10th of the price, or they wouldn’t sell it in a million years at Walmart because it’s so foo foo. So if that’s your positioning, then having a name, that’s a little inaccessible and that screams snootiness is actually… doesn’t necessarily suck. So, it’s not my favorite name, I think that the pronunciation anxiety that EVERYONE feels is a real minus, but a lot of names have trade-offs. Despite that minus I think it does work hard on the kind of, like, giving you a sense of what it is and really reinforcing its positioning of “that’s a place to really feel like a foodie and really drop some money,” which is ultimately what those of us that shop there are paying for. Let me know what you think. Bye.

 

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Filed Under: Authentic Brands, Brand Relevance, Naming

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