Ford is hiring for a world expert, someone with a rare and powerful gift, who can do things some don’t even dare to dream of: name stuff. Maybe that’s not a surprise for an outfit literally named the Ford (the founder) Motor (what it makes) Company (what it is); this might not be its natural strong suit. Although in fairness, most car companies are basically the same. Ford is looking to stand out from the crowd, and it’s going to do it with snazzier terminology.
According to the job description, the Nomenclature Strategist (what a name!) will “will lead the end-to-end execution of naming initiatives across Ford’s product and service portfolio… This role is ideal for someone who can merge linguistic creativity with business strategy, delivering names that are not only memorable and meaningful, but aligned with our broader brand architecture and legally viable.” In other words (and it’s all about words), Ford seems to want to move towards a coherent naming strategy rather than just coming up with something from scratch every time.
This isn’t just for car model names: the job description makes it clear that all Ford products, anything with a title really, will be under this person’s remit. For example, right now, Ford’s hands-free driving feature is called BlueCruise. Is that the best name? Does that tell me, the clueless buyer, what it does without having to look it up? Well, if you have an expert opinion on the subject, you can now get paid six figures to give it. The role will report to — and I legitimately love this name — the Director of Global Nomenclature, whose sole job I assume is to name the entire world.
Getting away from naming by committee
According to Consumer Reports back in 2013, the old naming process at Ford was a lot more scattered. People were plucked from the marketing, design, and communications departments, who collectively generated a list of hundres of names. This was whittled down for inadvertant cultural conflicts (words mean different things in different places), and then was run past consultants or focus groups (maybe the latter is where the Ford Focus came from). Then the lawyers got involved and spiked a bunch of ideas, before the final greenlight was given by the CEO.
If a kitchen had that many cooks in it, the food would not be very good. This is what begat the EcoSport, the Five Hundred (so bad that Ford renamed it the Taurus two years later), and the Escort (think that one all the way through, Ford). Of course, this is the company which originally came up with such thrilling names as the Model A, the Model B, and later, really defying convention, the Model T. So trying to pull in an expert at names might actually be a good idea here.
How expert? The job description is looking for someone with six years of experience naming stuff. I, personally, have been naming things since I was six years of age, so I’m pretty sure I’m a shoe-in. That said, I don’t have a Master’s degree in naming stuff, but someone who does is preferred for this role. Naturally, this role will still be getting stakeholder feedback from across the company; the committee won’t go away completely. It’s just that there will now be a dedicated professional driving towards the final results across the entire product suite.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that Ford has had some bangers over the years. The Mustang. The Raptor. The Thunderbird. Those are names you’d want to buy even if you’d never seen the actual cars. If you want the job, that’s the bar.