Nicknames sell goods on shopping channels
Most nicknames are bestowed on people to emphasize a unique characteristic, whether good or bad: Red for carrot-tops, Shortie for the height-challenged.Home shopping channels have adopted nicknames as a marketing tool to catch the awareness of potential customers.
Some of the nicknames are so cleverly concocted that in the minds of consumers, they replace the original names of products. Take YU.R Pore Remodeling Mask, a blackhead-removing facemask that is applied like an ointment and then dries on the face. The advertisement promoting the product on the GS group’s shopping channel shows the condition of a user’s pores before and after the mask is applied and peeled off. It is now commonly known as the “before-and-after mask” when pitched on TV.
Another nickname emphasizes the product’s convenience. The Pearly Shell zip-up bra is promoted as the “one-second bra”: the zip-up function of the undergarment helps women don the bra more quickly.
Cosmetics company Aekyung’s Age 20 foundation compact is dubbed the “mother-and-daughter pact,” to persuade consumers that the product is suitable for cross-generational use. The word “pact” is a Konglish term for compact.
Some nicknames are devised because Korean consumers are not familiar with long English product names. When enough customer reviews are accumulated, marketers pick the words that best represent product traits.
Home shopping retailers in particular pay attention to the customers’ perspectives to develop marketing strategies. Nicknames come in handy as merchandisers and shopping channel hosts strive to perfect such tactics through market research and product demonstration.
“The core competence of domestic home shopping channels is the ability to give consumers a reason to buy, instead of simply listing the properties of a product,” says Kim Eun-jeong, a manager at GS Shop’s beauty team. “One of the best methods to do this is using nicknames based on customer experience.”
BY KWAK JAE-MIN [lee.dongeun@joongang.co.kr]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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