Faculty Research: Matt Thomson Investigates Brand Nicknames in Marketing Campaigns

Starbies. HoJo. Beemer. Cumby’s. Dunks. On occasion, customers bestow nicknames to the businesses they frequent and the brands they buy.

But what happens when those businesses start using these “street” nicknames in their own marketing campaigns? In new study, Matt Thomson, Charles D. Schewe Faculty Fellow and professor of marketing at Isenberg (pictured), and co-authors Zhe Zhang (Western University in Canada) and Ning Ye (Stockton University) investigate whether this type of brand tactic is effective.

Examples of this marketing practice abound. In 2021, Bloomingdale’s company management decided to adopt the popular street name “Bloomies” for its new store in Fairfax, Virginia. When Nordstrom revamped its loyalty program in 2018, the company announced that a key change was to rename it “The Nordy Club,” in honor of the brand's long-standing nickname. Cumberland Farms made use of its nickname in a campaign— “Coffee comes and goes, but Cumby’s is forever”—in 2023.

“You can understand why a brand may think using a nickname derived from their customers is a good idea,” said Thomson. “They see their consumers as having an affection for the brand—why not reflect it?”

The paper, “BMW is Powerful, Beemer is Not: Nickname Branding Impairs Brand Performance”—which will be published in the Journal of Marketing this falll—is the first to investigate this type of marketing tactic. Thomson and his co-authors hypothesized that using a nickname in place of a formal name serves as an act of power redistribution, effectively signaling submission to consumers, thereby weakening perceptions of the brand and its performance.

This turned out to be true, according to Thomson. In more than 20 studies conducted for the paper, consumers consistently responded negatively.

“We found that this marketing practice is not effective, because it comes out as brands co-opting their customers’ affection,” he said. “We also wanted to see if there was a case when this negative impression is less pronounced. It seems that nickname branding is less harmful when a brand is perceived as warm rather than as competent, or when brands are not so focused on profiting from their messaging.”

For example, it’s less harmful for Starbucks to use “Starbies” to promote its locations as inclusive spaces than it is for promoting its coffee.

Thomson and his co-authors recommend that companies stop using this practice.

“It comes across as an act of deference to customers, over a business activity that customers expect companies to control,” said Thomson.