It took two British advertising students writing directly to then Nike CEO Philip Knight to draw confirmation of how to pronounce the sports equipment brand’s name properly.
In 2014, 50 years after Knight and Bill Bowerman had founded Blue Ribbon Sports, which would in 1971 be renamed Nike (after the Greek god of victory), the students sent Knight a letter, along with a stamped and addressed return envelope.
It contained just two paragraphs, asking Knight to simply circle the correct way to say the company’s name: ‘Nike’ or ‘Ni-ke’. It was reported at the time that they hadn’t expected a reply but, a few weeks later, got their letter back. Knight had circled ‘Ni-ke’.
As far as I can tell, this is the only time that Nike has been drawn into the pronunciation game. Searches on the wider web and Nike’s own pages for tips or official statements draw a blank.
The short of it is that it’s possible to build one of the world’s 10 most recognisable brands, a company that takes in $50 billion a year and employs 80,000 people while simultaneously not worrying that in some countries people will pronounce its name incorrectly.
And so, reader, to Hyundai, which, if you’re a regular radio listener, you will have heard advising an actor, and by association you, on how to say its name right.
Like Hyacinth Bucket answering the phone with a highfalutin ‘The Bouquet residence’, it’s not ‘High-oond-aye’, it’s ‘He-oon-day’, the advert says. There’s only a little attention given to the ‘y’, as the first two syllables are slurred towards one.
Hyundai says it would like to be called the same thing, correctly, worldwide. Although if you go to the US, residents don’t usually mention the ‘y’ at all, making it a two-syllable ‘Hunday’ – a situation about which, in Nike fashion, nobody seems to mind.
Not like they seem to in the UK, anyway, as the ad pushes its glasses up its nose and begins ‘akshually…’ before embarking on the correction and, here’s the thing, telling the listener precious little about any of its cars as it does so.
What luxury to be able to launch a Jaguar-lite advert intent on telling one who the company is rather than trying to actually sell them something it makes.
Why is Hyundai doing this? Why does it so borderline passive-aggressively care how one pronounces its name and why does it remotely think we care what it’s called?
I mean, look, I’m expected to get its name right, because it’s part of my gig. But as for the general consumer, as Mark Ritson wrote in Marketing Week: “Understanding the utter lack of importance a brand plays in the life of its customers is the beginning of better brand management.”
