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March 16, 2009

Brand Naming March Madness Success

I love 'March Madness'

That's because anything can happen - any team can win. And any fan, with a little luck, can predict the winner.

There is no right or wrong way for picking brackets - through darts or sophisticated algorithms work equally well, but everyone has their own way of doing it.

Now I am going to let you in on my secret method.

For the last few years, my bracket strategy has been based solely on linguistic considerations, primarily including:

• How the team's name flows.


• What the letters in the team name connotes.


• How strong or weak or masculine or feminine the team names are.

I simply compare the two team names in every game and pick the one that is the strongest sounding basketball brand name.

For example, it's no surprise that I picked Duke for one of this year's Final Four slots.

Duke is a great name because it's short, memorable, and starts off with a voiced plosive consonant, D, and ends in a plosive K (plosive consonants are highly correlated with speed and dependability).

In the middle of this name is a big strong low back vowel - U - that pulls it all together and tells you something 'big' is going to happen.

Duke, I predict, will make it to the Final Four as follows:

In the first round, Duke will beat Binghamton.

• The Binghamton name is too long, begins with a high tone (feminine) I, and isn't American enough for basketball (My apologies to Naismith).

In the second round, Duke will prevail over Texas.

• With a plosive T in first position and a perfectly balanced cadence, Texas is a strong name.


• However the X in Texas is too complex, scientific and not emotional enough for March Madness.

In the third round, Duke will defeat Pittsburgh.

• Pittsburgh will beat out two feminine team names (Florida and Oklahoma) to make it this far.


• What makes Pittsburgh an especially tough rival is its plosive density - PTTB and G.


• However, this name is longer than Duke and is hindered by its negative sound symbolism with 'the pits'. (A name like Pointsburgh, on the other hand, might even the score).

In the final round, I have predicted that Duke will face three other basketball brand names with strong semantic and phonetic assets:

• Boston: Short, balanced, begins with a friendly and welcoming B, followed by large round O vowel sounds that are both dynamic and magnified.
• Purdue: Also short and balanced, each syllable starts with a powerful plosive. The word has semantic connotation with a strong defense - as in 'pursue.'
• Gonzaga: Even it doesn't sound too appetizing, this name has a definite edge over the higher-toned, more feminine sounding rivals like Oklahoma, North Carolina and Illinois, which are the teams it will have to overcome to reach the finals.

Although Gonzaga appears to have a particularly tough road to the Final Four, its name has several things going for it:

• Two strong plosive G's.
• A dynamic and deep O.
• And an innovative Z.
• So when everyone else zigs, this name seems to zag (pun intended) - making it distinctive and provocative.

As for the championship game, stay tuned. Before making those selections I like to do an in-depth analysis of the coachs' names, the mascots' names and the names of the starting five.

Technorati Tags: March Madness, Basketball Brackets, Basketball Brand Names, Linguistics, Duke, Gonzaga

Posted by Diane Prange at March 16, 2009 4:05 PM
Posted to Linguistics | Sports and Recreation

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