I’m not big on things like ‘naming strategy’ – at least not in the approach certain brand consultancies endorse.
Sure, you want to make sure it doesn’t translate into “Granny Fucker” in Spanish or something, but having been mind-raped by Landor and their ‘proprietary naming process’ [which seemed awfully like putting words into a thesaurus and printing off whatever came out] I can’t help but feel a lot of what is often put forward is nothing more than an excuse in money making.
Saying that, I’ve recently seen something that highlighted that naming fuck ups can be much more than just how it translates into a foreign language – though by the same token, it could also be the greatest pisstake in corporate history.
So I was flicking through a magazine last week when I came across an ad for the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons.
Basically it was an ad advocating that women who wish to undergo cosmetic treatment should do so with a surgeon registered with the organisation.
So far so good – but then I realised the initials of the body were BAAPS, which is – albeit wrongly spelt – slang for women who have these …
Now I don’t know if that was intentional or not – I would assume given its the medical industry and they don’t do humour, it wasn’t – but I think it’s genius and hope to god they start doing ads that say:
Hey ladies, it you want some perky tits, make sure you have a good look at BAAPS.
Mind you, the Shanghai International Trust is giving them a run for their money with their brilliant acronym of S. H. I. T.
So it’s time to forget such theories as truth in advertising, it would appear the future is all about truth in acronym – which should make Landor happy, as I’m sure there’s a proprietary tool they can create to make an obscene amount of cash out of.