Think About It

Some bank names are obscure, like Wachovia.

Or lifeless, like Bank of America.

But the worst bank name out there today is Fifth Third Bank.

It’s obscure.

It’s lifeless.

And darn it, it’s just so hard to say.

The corporate leaders at Fifth Third Bank took “fifth,” one of the most difficult words to pronounce in the English language, and then made it even tougher by following it immediately with another “th” word.

Fifth Third Bank. Try to say it clearly five times fast. (Go ahead. We’ll wait.) Did you pull a tongue muscle? Even the voice in our head gets tripped up when we read “Fifth Third” silently.

Granted, most people don’t enunciate so clearly as to end up with a tongue injury. Most people probably use the lazy man’s version, “Fif-third Bank.” That’s an improvement for the person speaking, but not so good for the bank, since word-of-mouth marketing only works with intelligible speech.

Beyond the elocution challenges of the name Fifth Third Bank is the nagging question, “What does it mean?” The bank’s logo, which looks roughly like the fraction 5/3, makes us ask, if three thirds is 100 percent, and four thirds is more than 100 percent, is the name “Fifth Third Bank” intended to make us think this bank goes the extra, extra mile? Could that be the logic behind this awkward name?

No, it isn’t. According to the company Web site, the name “Fifth Third” is derived from the names of the two banks that merged to create it: Fifth National Bank and – you guessed it – Third National Bank.

And that’s what makes this name truly sad. Fifth Third Bank has no deeper meaning, no marketing value. It’s simply a sad testament to what happens when two parties agree to merge their businesses but won’t let go of their independent corporate names.

Fifth Third Bank has the worst name because it fell victim to the worst naming strategy. Instead of using basic marketing principles to choose a name that would add value to its brand, it gave in to marketing’s worst enemy: corporate politics.

Today, "Guiding Light" is airing its final episode after more than 70 years on radio and television.

The cancellation of the longest running drama on TV is the latest casualty in a soap opera world that is hurting for money. The growth of TiVo and webcasts have cut into their ad revenue, leaving daytime dramas desperate to cut expenses.

Some shows have  trimmed their payrolls by killing off characters at an unprecedented rate. Others have been taken off the air. Those that remain are on life support, needing a miracle to stay on the airwaves.

While it's far from shocking, still there is something remarkable about the demise of a genre that once was the killer app of advertising. In their prime, soap operas were the undisputed vehicle of choice for reaching homemakers. Indeed, the term "soap opera" came from the fact that the shows were sponsored by soap manufacturers trying to woo that audience.

The decline of soap operas may feel like a great loss to the world of mass marketing, but in truth, it's just part of the natural cycle of life and death. Soaps were born in the 1930s and 1940s from someone's inspired idea of how to profit from the new media of radio and television. They are dying because people today use radio and television differently.

Our challenge is to look at the new media of today and, like the broadcasting network executives of last century, ask ourselves, "Now that we have this amazing new way to reach people, what are we going to do with it?"

Come on. Dream with us.

Congratulations to Marcy, Jim and Gabriel Pett.

We've been watching pay-per-click fraud closely over the last year or so and discussing our concerns with our clients openly for just as long. Now, B to B Magazine is reporting overall the click fraud rates above 17%, the highest level since Click Forensics began tracking the data in 2006. Read the entire article.

More on pay-per-click fraud from Tech News Review.

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