My car was hit by a virus

This was certainly the marketing nightmare of a brand name going viral. Tata Motors had got the right momentum to launch its small car Zica on the big stage. Just a couple of days before India’s largest motor show, Auto Expo 2016, the global Zika virus outbreak put emergency brakes on Tata’s small car launch, at a time when the name had started going from 0-100 kmph in consumer recall.

For the Tatas, it was a bolt from the blue. To launch with a car name that sounded remarkably similar to the virus that the world was running away from would be foolhardy. Hence the company decided to go back to the drawing board. It announced a global crowd-sourcing contest to get a new name for its hatchback. But it will not be as easy as it sounds. As the company said in a media statement, a new name for the car will take at least a few weeks after the necessary factors of branding and regulatory approvals are addressed.

Pun, unintended One could blame it on misfortune in the case of Tata Motors. However, others have not been as lucky. That’s because many car brands forget the simple thumb rule when it comes to naming their brands — it should translate easily into foreign languages and not mean anything derogatory. Globally, there are several cases when auto brands have often become the laughing stock in certain parts of the world, because their brand names have a different meaning altogether in those countries.

One of the most quoted examples in the branding universe is the Chevrolet Nova. That’s because Nova in Spanish means, “It doesn’t go”. Now, which automobile brand would want to call itself that? Or take the case of American Motor Corporation’s Gremlin that made it to

Time magazine’s listing of ‘the 50 worst cars of all time’. The least of Gremlin’s problems was its name. Just in case, you wanted to know, it meant the equivalent of ‘niggling issues.’ It’s unlikely that many would go for a car that issued a threat like that. One could argue that this was in the 1970s and car brands are likely more careful in recent times.

Unfortunately that’s not true. In recent times, other car brands have caused their brand owners much embarrassment in certain countries, because the name meant something derogatory in these regions.

There is the case of Mitsubishi Pajero, Honda Fitta (called Jazz in India) or the Hyundai Creta. (A casual search on the internet will tell you why these seemingly harmless names in India were a source of amusement in some other countries).

Carmakers, take heart Brand consultants, however, downplay this phenomenon. “These are one-off incidents that can happen due to regional sensitivities or the local culture being overlooked. But it would be unfair to say this happens only in the auto category,” says Arijit Ray, co-founder and managing partner, Paperboat Brandworks.

As the cases above illustrate, though, automobile brands get their rather unfair share of publicity when a cultural boo-boo takes place. Branding experts, like Pranesh Misra, CMD, Brandscapes Worldwide, point out that incidents like these get noticed in the automobile category as a lot rides on the badge value. “The badge is the most visible thing in the car.” But Misra is quick to add that brand name disasters are not necessarily limited to this sector. “There are enough and more cases from other categories,” he says. Carmakers would certainly take heart from that.