Monday, June 6, 2011

Swamps, An Albino Alligator & Branding

Albino Alligator, Steinhart Aquarium
My wife and I recently took advantage of the first adults only "Penguins + Pajamas" at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. It's an amazing facility and we had a great time. How often can you say you got to sleep a few feet away from an Albino Alligator?

The interesting thing about the Albino Alligator is that we were the only ones who chose to sleep in that section of the building. It's a small area and we were near the front of the line to get in to the event so we decided to go there. At the time we made that decision we weren't familiar enough with the various sections to really be sure where we'd be sleeping. It turned out we were right beside the big window that looks into the underwater portion of the Museum's Albino Alligator exhibit. We were literally able to set our sleeping bags up right at the base of the window. Oddly we were the only ones in that area which got me to thinking. OK, so maybe the thought of sleeping a few feet away from an Alligator isn't as appealing to others as it was to us. Given the enthusiasm of all the people who stopped by to peer through the glass as we were getting ready for bed  I don't think that was the case.

My theory is that the name of that section was the primary issue. We had a choice to call it a night at midnight or two AM. We chose the earlier time. That gave us the following two choices of sections to bed down in.
  1. Aquarium
  2. Swamp
Any guesses as to which one we chose? Any guess as to which choice everyone else who wanted to get to sleep early chose?

If the choice had been between sleeping with the fishes or sleeping with an alligator I suspect a few more people would have chosen the swamp. Branding matters. This is why you'll seldom hear of a product being labeled with a word that is anything less than entirely positive.

All of this illustrated to me why product names are so important. It's clearly a lot harder to sell a swamp than it is an aquarium.

Image by Glenn Franco Simmons via Flickr
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