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“Adobe Audition” Is A Terrible, Terrible Name…

By Tim Gross - Internet Business Blog | January 19, 2008

Don’t ever downplay the importance of the name you give to a product. The influence it has on your potential customers deciding to buy it or not might shock you.

For years, I used a program called “Cool Edit Pro” for music production.  Pretty good name. Among other things it was the #1 software used by radio broadcasters in the UK.

It was purchased by Adobe a few years ago, they improved it, and it’s even better now.

The “industry standard” music recording program it competes with is called “ProTools“.  VERY good name. In fact, I think its name is part of what helped it become the industry standard.

Knowing all this, after Adobe bought Cool Edit Pro, they decided to rename it. Go ahead and guess what cool upgraded name they gave it to compete with ProTools.

Go ahead, guess. I’ll wait…  :-)

…waiting…

…Drum please: The name they changed it to is: Adobe Audition

Wow, what a crummy name. I’m assuming that after Adobe brainstormed names it was a tossup between:

 Heh. Seriously though, if I were looking for pro-level music software now, something called “Adobe Audition” wouldn’t even make it on my radar. It’ doesn’t sound like a serious musician’s tool… even though it is.

Thanks Adobe, for choosing a product name that virtually guarantees that your software will never become an industry standard in my peer group.

So why do I use it? -Because it’s great recording software and I already know how to use it.

Why do I care about the dumb name then? -Because when I co-produce music, the people I work with always use ProTools and it’s inconvenient to exchange files back and forth, meaning that I may have to wind up buying ProTools anyway just for that reason.

What can you learn from this? -Think long and hard about naming your products, it’s important!

Topics: Marketing, Oops (Bad Move) | Trackback URL

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