The Write Stuff

When will we run out of names? Although I originally got involved in product naming as an add-on feature to the business of copywriting, it really does call on very particular skills. It’s often thought of as the ultimate in creative writing, as so much is condensed into just one word. There have also been a tidal wave of nonsensical trendy names that sound creative over the past few years. They only add to the perception of it being some sort of dark art (although I think they probably have more to do with the difficulty of getting one-word domain names). Read more »

I’ve been working on a few projects recently that can best be described as “personal branding”, coaches or consultants that decide to build their business under their own name. But “personal branding” has a very selfish ring to it. At its worst, it’s an exercise in ego-stroking. But as the “brands” in question were perfectly aware, there’s more to personal branding than “me-me-me”.

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Countdown 100 leadership coaching

I was amazed when an art director at a major agency recently told me that on average, their contact with a client had changed every six months over the past three years. That’s quite a turnover, with the inevitable loss in productivity and continuity. Coincidentally, coach and consultant Serge Pegoff told me that between 25-40% of managers in new positions don’t meet expectations. The managers themselves claim that a lack of support was often to blame.

Pegoff and some coaching colleagues started a programme specifically to enable managers to get up to speed as quickly as possible – roughly 3 months. So when they asked us to develop a brochure and identity, the name Countdown 100 was an obvious choice. It stands out, as other programmes on the market are given horrendous manager-speak names. The visuals, developed by Pix&Com, play on the countdown theme. For details about the programme, visit Countdown 100.

The EU’s DG Health & Consumers have come up with a viral campaign produced by the Mostra agency to increase awareness about online rights for younger shoppers. They just needed a wrap up line and did we have any ideas for a suitable URL?

Finding URLs is a bit like finding a brand name. Of course there is a perfect one that sums everything up in between 5-7 letters and is funny, witty and a guaranteed magnet for visitors in itself. Problem is, it’s been taken. There are also a good number of almost-perfect URLs that are very close to your best choice. But as this is a public service type of information, you can’t risk taking a name that might be hijacked by your close neighbour to peddle porn or something (a fate that befell the Festival de Cannes a few years back). So you have to dig a little deeper. With French-speaking copywriter Chantal Debauche we put together a few ideas and then wrote the list of do’s and don’ts to the client’s brief. The URL? Quite simply Gimme the info.

Names are probably one of the most difficult things to get right. Over the years, I have been able to come up with a fair number of product or company names. But there is no single way to get this right.

Amongst the recent successful ones is the MIPIM Horizons trade fair, which will run next December in Cannes. In this case, MIPIM asked the Consorcom agency to help them with the name as they wanted to create a new event to accompany the hugely successful MIPIM property market trade fair. As MIPIM Horizons will focus on emerging markets, we naturally focused on that aspect. We kept the mother brand name and developed a range of names evoking discovery, novelty and the like. The Horizons is quite a “natural” choice, as it is easily understandable and evokes a lot of things that are interesting to property developers.

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Over the past the past few years, I have worked extensively with the Belgian agency Consorcom. They recently updated their site, featuring their work with Midem, MIPIM Asia and others. I also wrote a few words for the site itself.

Most recently, I’ve worked with them on finding a name and developing marketing material for Amazia (left), which will be Asia’s foremost entertainment content market from next year.

For more about the agency, visit Consorcom.