It's foolish to claim that bing has only claimed a small market share due to homophonic issues. Don't think for a second that the Bing brand wasn't overthought on every level. I can guarantee that they considered the Chinese localization before launch. Bing has enough problems gaining market share in markets where Bing has a vaguely positive sound to it.
For bona fides, I worked on many projects where we developed localized Chinese names for new and existing global brands. We charged through the nose for this. The numbers you are looking for end in six zeros. This was a couple years ago when China was even more of a black box than it is now and there was a sense of herd panic about getting in. License to print money. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
Yes, you should worry about the transliteration, but if you are a western based company and want to move into the chinese market, you have much much much bigger concerns, namely getting shut out by any given joint venture partner that you shack up with, with onerous "technology sharing" terms which results in your company getting pillaged and left on the side of the (market) road. Or watch as your market is crowded out by a home grown tech-alike (supported by the chinese government).
And this stuff is way overthought most of the time. Coke isn't exactly a positive association on any level (drug, sounds like a bit like slang for other unmentionables, coal). I could go on all day spewing this but ultimately, as weird as some names are, as much as brand consultants like to BS clients with this rubbish, it is a much richer set of factors that determine brand & business success in the market.
I think the name is one of the factors, but probably not the primary factor. But the point of the article is not really about search engine business models.
For bona fides, I worked on many projects where we developed localized Chinese names for new and existing global brands. We charged through the nose for this. The numbers you are looking for end in six zeros. This was a couple years ago when China was even more of a black box than it is now and there was a sense of herd panic about getting in. License to print money. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
Yes, you should worry about the transliteration, but if you are a western based company and want to move into the chinese market, you have much much much bigger concerns, namely getting shut out by any given joint venture partner that you shack up with, with onerous "technology sharing" terms which results in your company getting pillaged and left on the side of the (market) road. Or watch as your market is crowded out by a home grown tech-alike (supported by the chinese government).
And this stuff is way overthought most of the time. Coke isn't exactly a positive association on any level (drug, sounds like a bit like slang for other unmentionables, coal). I could go on all day spewing this but ultimately, as weird as some names are, as much as brand consultants like to BS clients with this rubbish, it is a much richer set of factors that determine brand & business success in the market.