What’s in a name?
A great question once asked by Shakespeare’s Juliet herself.
But what if Juliet was now a brand manager on the lookout for a new agency to place on her upcoming pitch list? She’d be confronted by many ‘roses’, probably all offering the same services. But would they all smell as sweet?
We do a lot of work in naming and think about names a lot. But since we’ve started we’ve had a lot of people asking us about our company name. So that got us thinking about agency names. Today there are a plethora of agencies, across many specialities, all fighting it out for high Google rankings, all with snazzy websites and wall graphics, all looking to catch the eye of a Juliet or a John. And, it seems to us, that agency naming falls into a few buckets.*
There’s the ‘named-after-founders’ bucket. Old-school, corporate, makes you sound like a lawyer. Works really well until the founders take a step back and then clients start to worry that they are no longer important if one of the names above the door isn’t in the meeting.
And what about this one? It’s what we like to call the ‘fruit/animal/service mash-up’ bucket. Not a day goes by when we don’t see a ‘Banana Elephant Media’, a ‘Strawberry Giraffe Digital’ or a ‘Tomato Dinosaur Social’. It’s like a lucky dip for naming, and with infinite combinations it sure must make finding the right URL easier.
And then there’s the ‘One-worder’ bucket (this is a big one). There are many single-word agencies out there, often with enigmatic titles or names alluding to what they can do, or what they offer. Some relate to location; the building they’re in, or the type of characters who own it. And it’s this category where we put ourselves.
We wanted to be the answer to their problem and the means to their end.
But we wanted something extra from our name. We wanted our name to be a call-to-action. We debated our name for endless months, trying to find something that was right for us, but also something that was right for clients too. We loved the idea of a name that is automatically associated with the type of work we do, and that clients already use in their everyday work vocabulary. We wanted to be the answer to their problem and the means to their end. And we wanted something that worked on many other basic levels. ‘What sounds good on the phone?’, ‘What works well on a screen?’, ‘What’s easy for a client to type into an email?’ (Okay, we didn’t quite tick this box!).
We know that names, like brands and logos, are empty vessels and without investing in them (meaning and/or money) they are just words on a page. You can’t create a culture through a name, or win business via it, but you can set the direction for which everything else can follow (or leap). And when a name has meaning behind it, it can become a galvanising force, for staff and clients.
Names are fragile things; easily broken and quickly forgotten without constant attention.
We also know names need to be nurtured, respected, and treated with care. Names are fragile things; easily broken and quickly forgotten without constant attention. What takes years to grow and build in reputation, can be eroded and lost through the decisions you make. Afterall, what are clients, talent and eventually investors buying if not the name above the door, the reputation it comes with, and the people who have made that name mean something?
When it comes to naming a company there are a lot of things to consider, but perhaps none more so than this: ‘does it make you proud to say it aloud?’. That’s the real deal-breaker, and one that we often put to our clients. The chances are if you believe in your name, you’ll believe in what you stand for, and others will believe in you too. That, or you might get lucky and be called ‘Robin’, in which case you probably fall into all three buckets and have come up trumps.
If you’d like us to call you some names, just drop us line at hello@l-e-a-p.com or visit www.l-e-a-p.com.
*This is neither a scientific analysis nor an exhaustive review of naming strategies. For that, we really would have to charge.