MAM
A BILLION BUSINESS NAMES CLASH ON E-COMMERCE
The dilution of a business name by so many similar names points to the demise of the power of once-unique names. They have become a big marketing liability by being just background noise with no distinction in today’s fiercely competitive marketplace. It’s a soup all right.
E-commerce is growing in leaps and bounds. Searching on global engines for business names based on “Web” or “Net,” like WebCom, WebTech, NetSys or NetWeb, will now result in millions of matches. This signals a crisis for business name identities, corporate images and global cyber-branding and domain name management.
The same goes for the other top 100 most diluted words, suffixes, prefixes and roots as they have equally glutted the business marketplace. Words like info, data, tech, cell or soft have been overly used and abused in the naming of products, services and companies.
There are a handful of exceptions, like Microsoft or WebEx.
Alphabet Soup
This dilution points to the demise of the power of once-unique names, as they now have become a big marketing liability by being just being just background noise with no distinction in today’s fiercely competitive marketplace. It’s a soup all right.
In an earlier study by ABC Namebank in 1997, the same diluted names pointed to less than 10,000 possible hits, while today’s numbers are at hundreds of millions. Once identical names reach an unfathomable number, that name identity is doomed.
This raises serious questions for the executives of those hundreds of millions of businesses around the globe hoping to achieve superior sales. The fundamental laws of corporate image and naming in cyber branding clearly demand a simple, very unique and a powerful name identity, or else entire advertising and branding budgets are bound to be wasted.
The point here is that even if customers manage to find one of these companies through a search, the brand recognition is still blurred as millions of similar names compete for attention.
This driving force of the new name economy will simply get worse as we engage a virtual society where every second, millions of generic and diluted names are being crushed into the e-commerce arena. Zillions of fluid, wireless names, images and messages are racing against each other like a 24-7 battle scene from “Lord of The Rings.”
Is the Name Working?
The biggest problem has been when businesses in developing countries simply copy names from the West. With 246 countries, and a large majority of them playing amateur branding games, it is very easy for the numbers to add up a billion. It may be true that most of the users are not large or legit, but the names do cram the global search engines.
No matter how and where these type of names originated and irrespective of whether they were created as a sudden bolt of lightning or developed over many months by outsourced teams of fancy branding professionals, the question remains: Is it working? And to what standard?
Users of these diluted monikers are not suing each other, because they have no chance of defending the generic nature of the name. Still, somehow it is a taboo for the senior executives to openly discuss the name issues. This makes for prolonged agony as most marketing and branding slowly bleeds corporate resources, reducing the visibility on e-commerce while the cash registers keep getting quieter.
When you have a NetThis and WebThat, how do customers keep it all straight? The beauty of well-known brand names like PlayStation, Rolex, Panasonic or Google is that they are so easily identifiable from the crowd.
There is a lot to be said for highly unique, proprietary naming. This is not just a branding game any longer. Business naming never was a creative exercise; it is supposed to be a very tactical black and white maneuver to capture the right alpha-structure and to make sure that it is not only simple and highly related to the business, but most critically, it is available for a globally protected trademark along with a matching dot-com.
Three Golden Rules of Naming
For the true masters of naming architects, this is a normal, doable task, but to creative branding brainstormers, it is just a game of making large random lists, hence, the current naming and duplication crisis. Seek out the right expertise and the right methodology to end with a “Five Star Standard” business name.
The golden rules for choosing a business name start with the premise that a company should never lean under someone else’s umbrella, or it will wind up getting wet. Don’t be a copycat. It is very bad to copy or borrow from an established identity. Trying to resemble an established legendary name is fruitless in the long run.
Creativity is important but over-creativity can be damaging. It can cause fire. Do not twist, bend, stretch, exaggerate, corrupt or modify alphabetic structures without certified and proven skills. It might result in difficult, confusing and unpronounceable names.
Work locally, but name globally. A name is only good when it is free and clear to travel around the globe without encountering translation problems or trademark conflicts.
Without a proper and in-depth understanding of corporate nomenclature, rules of global cyber-branding and domain name identities, it is no longer possible to play the real e-commerce game. The sooner the analysis is done, the sooner the results will come.
MAM
India’s financial sector spent less on TV ads in 2025 but flooded the internet
Banks, insurers and lenders cut tv ads as digital jumps, LIC and Muthoot lead tv and Axis Bank tops online
MUMBAI: India’s banking, financial services and insurance sector, one of the most prolific advertisers in the country, delivered a split verdict on media in 2025. It spent less on television, held its nerve in print, turned up the volume on radio and deluged the internet with a ferocity that left every other medium looking pedestrian. The picture that emerges from TAM AdEx’s cross-media report for the BFSI sector is of an industry in transition, still wedded to the news bulletin but increasingly seduced by the algorithm.
Television: a retreat with caveats
TV ad volumes for the BFSI sector fell 16 per cent in 2025 compared with 2024, a sharp reversal after two years of consistent growth that had pushed volumes 16 per cent above 2021 levels by 2023 and a further 7 per cent higher by 2024. Within 2025 itself, the drop was concentrated in the middle of the year: the second and third quarters saw ad volumes slide 35 per cent each against the first quarter, with a partial recovery of 13 per cent in the fourth.
The retreat did not reshuffle the deck. Life insurance retained first place among TV categories with 19 per cent of ad volumes, mortgage loans held second with 16 per cent, and the top ten categories together accounted for 82 per cent of all BFSI television advertising. The dominance of news channels was equally pronounced: news claimed 68 per cent of ad volumes, general entertainment channels a distant 14 per cent and movies 12 per cent. Together, news and GEC captured 82 per cent of the sector’s television spend. News bulletins alone took 48 per cent of programme-genre volumes, with feature films second at 12 per cent. Prime time, between 6pm and 11pm, drew 34 per cent of ad volumes, followed by afternoon at 22 per cent and morning at 20 per cent. A full 82 per cent of all ads ran between 20 and 40 seconds.
Life Insurance Corporation of India was the sector’s biggest TV spender with 11 per cent of ad volumes. Muthoot Financial Enterprises came second with 9 per cent, followed by National Payments Corporation of India at 6 per cent, Tata AIG General Insurance at 5 per cent and State Bank of India at 5 per cent. The top ten advertisers together accounted for 51 per cent of total TV volumes. Three names were new to the top ten in 2025: Tata AIG General Insurance, IIFL Finance and Tata Capital. At brand level, Muthoot Finance Loan Against Gold led with 9 per cent share, Tata AIG Health Insurance entered the top ten for the first time, and the top ten brands together contributed 35 per cent of ad volumes.
Print: the long climb continues
Print told a different story. Ad space for the BFSI sector has grown every year since 2021, rising 16 per cent in 2022, 30 per cent in 2023, 51 per cent in 2024 and 64 per cent in 2025, all measured against a 2021 baseline. Within 2025, ad space was flat in the second quarter but surged 46 per cent in the third and 33 per cent in the fourth compared with the first. Life insurance led print categories with 21 per cent of ad space, followed by mutual funds and banking services and products at 13 per cent each, and corporate financial institutes at 11 per cent. The top ten categories together took 82 per cent of print ad space. LIC led print advertisers with 6 per cent share, and the top ten together covered just 19 per cent of ad space, a reflection of how fragmented print spending remains. Three new entrants joined the top ten in 2025, with Billion Brains Garage Ventures the only exclusive presence not seen in 2024’s list. In the top ten brands, LIC dominated with a 2 per cent share, while Nippon India Mutual Fund rose to third position from fourth in 2024. English accounted for 62 per cent of print ad space, Hindi for 20 per cent. Business and finance publications took 59 per cent of the genre split. The south zone led regional spending with 33 per cent of print ad space, Bangalore topping that zone, while New Delhi and Mumbai were the leading cities nationally.
Radio: louder than ever
Radio ad volumes for the BFSI sector have climbed steadily, rising 12 per cent above 2021 levels in 2023, 36 per cent in 2024 and 45 per cent in 2025. The quarterly pattern within 2025 was volatile: a sharp drop of 43 per cent in the second quarter and 42 per cent in the third, followed by a near-full recovery in the fourth. Life insurance led radio categories with 22 per cent of volumes, banking services and products second at 14 per cent and corporate NBFCs third at 11 per cent. LIC of India held its position as the leading radio advertiser with 20 per cent of ad volumes; the top ten radio advertisers together covered 69 per cent. Muthoot Financial Enterprises led radio brands with 10 per cent share, five of the top ten brands belonged to LIC alone, and SBI Mutual Fund made a remarkable leap to fifth position from 272nd in 2024. Evening and morning time-bands together captured 84 per cent of radio ad volumes, with evenings at 44 per cent and mornings at 40 per cent. Maharashtra was the leading state for radio BFSI advertising with 18 per cent share; Maharashtra, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh together accounted for 43 per cent.
Digital: the five-times surge
If one number defines the 2025 BFSI advertising story, it is five. Digital ad impressions for the sector multiplied fivefold between 2021 and 2025, having already doubled in 2023 and doubled again in 2024 before the 2025 leap. Within the year, impressions dipped 19 per cent in the second quarter and 12 per cent in the third before recovering 8 per cent above the first quarter by the fourth. Banking services and products led digital categories with 27 per cent of impressions, life insurance and credit cards tied at 19 per cent each, and securities and sharebroking organisations fell from first place in 2024 to fourth in 2025. Axis Bank was the runaway leader among digital advertisers with 12 per cent of impressions, followed by ICICI Bank at 9 per cent, IDFC First Bank at 7 per cent and Kotak Mahindra Bank at 6 per cent. The top ten digital advertisers covered 59 per cent of impressions, and seven of them were new entrants compared with 2024, signalling rapid churn in the digital spending hierarchy. At brand level, Axis Bank led with 9 per cent, ICICI HPCL Super Saver Credit Card vaulted to third place from 921st in 2024, and six of the top ten digital brands were new to the list. Programmatic buying accounted for 91 per cent of all digital BFSI transactions; combined with ad networks, it captured 96 per cent.
The data from TAM AdEx paints the portrait of a sector that still believes in the power of the television news bulletin to sell insurance to the masses, but increasingly knows that the next generation of borrowers, investors and cardholders is scrolling, not watching. The race is now on to reach them before the algorithm serves up someone else’s loan offer first.
