The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]


Is Success All In The Name?
July 10, 2006, 6:29 pm
Filed under: Comment

 

I know many people in advertising hate ‘puns’ [Steve Henry used to tell me they represented a ‘lazy mind’] but there is something about them that I love. 

The picture above is from the ‘confectionary shop’ at my local cinema.  How lovely is that? Far better than ‘Sweets’ or ‘Candy World’ like you get at the local ‘Showcase’. 

A name is so bloody important for a company – but it is so easy to fall into wank-territory and over-think it. Saying that, anything is better than simply calling your company by your own name.

I can’t help but feel when that happens, you either have no imagination or have an amazing ego!  How funny so many ad agencies fall into this trap eh! Ha.


5 Comments so far
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One of the first things I read when I started looking at Ad jobs was “Contrary to popular opinion, advertising is not puns.”

But why should we automatically exclude a potentially useful and memorable language device purely because it has been overused in the past.

Look at barbers/hairdressers, they often have mad names, but it makes them memorable in a competitive market. Some local gems include: Blade Runners and Scissor Sisters.

I must argue in part that many small businesses choose named names for the sake of keeping a personal or local image; but for ad agencies… its just showing off mostly.

Comment by Rob Mortimer

My favourite was a Double Glazing company in Bradford run by a couple of Indian guys whose slogan was …

“You’ve tried the cowboys, now try the indians”

Bloody magic.

Comment by rob

Brilliant, especially considering how bad window/double glazing companies are at choosing names!

Comment by Rob Mortimer

Rob

Lollywood is the Pakistani equivalent of Hollywood
Bollywood is the Indian Film industry, Kollywood is the Tamil industry down in South India

Comment by Nishad

There’s a place in Sydney called ‘Pymble’ [pronounced Pim Ball] and my colleague just passed an IT shop called ‘Pymble Wizard’ – genius.

Comment by Rob




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