Hello Steven,
I hope you have not been sucked into marketing hype by random and unsubstantiated Internet postings... here is what I found that directly contradicts your "expert's" claims... To give a balanced side of the story, perhaps you should have included claims that
BTW, that marketing professor for my class worked for GM and I trust what he said more than random internet postings.
http://www.namesavers.net/
DON'T GO THERE . . . Adopting a name without checking on the potential language translations can be both painful and humorous as GM executives learned after they launched their NOVA line of CHEVROLET cars. While Chevys were traditionally popular in Latin American countries, the NOVA was an unusually hard sell, since NO-VA means literally in Spanish: "Does not go, Will not go."
http://www.malkam.com/
You can't help but smile at the story of Chevrolet marketing their brand new Nova in Latin America and then not grasping why it didn't sell. The problem lay in the language. "No va" in Spanish means "doesn't go", which is exactly what happened to the sales figures.
http://www.cba.uni.edu/
General Motors introduced the Nova in Latin America. Nova means, "it doesn' t go" in Spanish. The car had terrible sales. G.M. finally figured out the problem, renamed the car Caribe, and the sales increased to the company' s expectations.
>
> "Nova" in Spanish means "star" ... and is pronounced completely
differently
> than "No va".
>
> If you read the link I posted, the myth is so prevalent that it has made
it
> into marketing textbooks ... even though it is completely untrue. That's
> part of the myth that was debunked.
>
> And the Caribe (the model name most often cited as the "new" name for the
> Nova) was made by Volkswagen, not Chevrolet.
>
> See http://www.snopes.com/
>
> If that's not enough, then:
>
>
http://www.entrepreneur.com/
> tml
> http://spanish.about.com/
> http://www.urbanlegends.com/
>
>
>
> on 01/04/2003 04:19 PM, Steve Neago at questor@cinci.rr.com wrote:
>
> > Hi Steven,
> >
> > Your claim of a "urban myth" was covered at length in one of my college
> > marketing class case studies in the early 1980s...
> >
> > The "No Va" (Nova) car brand name did negatively affect GM sales in
Spanish
> > speaking countries for that model and was verified by the Marketing
> > Professor of my class at the time who did market research consulting for
GM.
> >
> > He claimed GM Detroit use to have a "one size fits all" mentality that
did
> > not recognize the unique needs and preferences of people living in other
> > countries. If I recall correctly, GM remnamed the "Nova" to disfferent
name
> > after several years of languishing sales.
> >
> > Steve Neago
> > "Questioning Internet claims, not the facts in Cincinnati, Ohio"
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Steven L. Sheffield" <stevens@veloworks.com>
> > To: "Raoul Delmare" <R.Delmare@charter.net>; "Classic Rendezvous"
> > <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>; "Mark Bulgier" <mark@bulgier.net>
> > Sent: Saturday, January 04, 2003 12:23 PM
> > Subject: OT: Chevy Nova (was Re: [CR]Bicycle brand nicknames)
> >
> >
> >> on 01/04/2003 08:09 AM, Raoul Delmare at R.Delmare@Charter.net wrote:
> >>
> >>> Like when somebody at General Motors finally figured out why the
> > Chevrolet
> >>> Nova was not the best name for a car sent to Mexico . No Va = No Go
.
> >>> Wonderful name for a car , "Won't Go" !!
> >>
> >>
> >> Urban myth.
> >>
> >> See http://www.snopes.com/
> >>
> >> --
> >>
> >> Steven L. Sheffield
> >> stevens at veloworks dot com
> >> veloworks at worldnet dot ay tea tee dot net
> >> bellum pax est libertas servitus est nescio robur est
> >> ess ay ell tea ell ay kay ee sea aye tee why you ti ay aitch
> >> aitch tee tea pea colon [for word] slash [four ward] slash double-you
> >> double-yew double-ewe dot veloworks dot com [four word] slash
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >
> >
>
> --
>
> Steven L. Sheffield
> stevens at veloworks dot com
> veloworks at worldnet dot ay tea tee dot net
> bellum pax est libertas servitus est ignoratio vis est
> ess ay ell tea ell ay kay ee sea aye tee why you ti ay aitch
> aitch tee tea pea colon [for word] slash [four ward] slash double-you
> double-yew double-ewe dot veloworks dot com [four word] slash