• A Flick by Any Other Name…

    Posted on April 20th, 2006 by and currently 3 commenting.

    The movie Snakes on a Plane starring Samuel L Jackson isn’t coming out for months, but you have probably already heard a lot about it. Normally, movie pre-release “news” would be the result of the studio marketers or the tabloids touting celebrity romance, but the story here is about the extensive audience anticipation of the movie. The title alone has created a flurry of activity:

    • 41 spoof trailers and interviews posted on YouTube
    • 120 user-generated Snakes on a Plane (SoaP) designs that you can order as T-shirts or your favoite CafePress items (they’re even running sponsored search to support it)
    • A dedicated site www.snakesonablog.com – the originator of which has been invited to the premiere

    And in a shocking example of Hollywood listening to its audience, a line of dialogue requested by the fans was added into the final cut of the film.

    What’s so exciting about this? This audience has drawn their inspiration from nothing more than the name of the film – a name that clearly identifies what the film is about and its tone. During production, the studio wanted to change the title to “Pacific Flight 121″. Sam Jackson and others stopped this as they thought the new title would misrepresent the film as something loftier than it is: an over the top action/horror flick about snakes on a plane. Can you imagine throngs of fans creating their own “Pacific Flight 121″ fansites before seeing a frame of the film?

    Adopting a name that clearly represents who you are and what you stand for will help you and your natural audience find each other and start a dialogue.

    Speaking of names, I’m Virginia Miracle and I’m new here. I look forward to starting the conversation with you.

  • Why do we need to name things?

    Posted on April 18th, 2006 by and currently 0 commenting.

    Yesterday I had a conversation with someone who asked me,’Why do we NEED to name things? Like companies, organizations, products, movements?’

    I found this when I was poking around today, from Laura Casey, a student of Human Ecology (don’t you love that?) at College of the Atlantic and I thought I’d share:

    “What is the name of that geranium on the window sill, please?”

    “That’s the apple scented geranium.”

    “Oh, I don’t mean that sort of a name. I mean just a name you gave it yourself. Didn’t you give it one then? May I call it–let me see–Bonny would do–may I call it Bonny while I’m here? Oh, do let me!”

    “Goodness, I don’t care. But where on earth is the sense of naming a geranium?”

    “Oh, I like things to have handles on them even if they are only geraniums. It makes them more like people.”

    –L. M. Montgomery
    Anne of Green Gables

    People who raise farm animals for meat rarely name them. In many cultures, babies are not considered real, not whole people, until they are named. Villains in books and movies are often left unnamed or given euphemisms like Dr. Claw, The Joker, or Scar; they are never called Mike or Jen. In all of these cases, real names make the person or animal multi-dimensional, capable of feeling, worthy of empathy.

    Names give people something to hold onto–handles as Anne of Green Gables calls them. Your name is almost always the first intimate detail about yourself that you give to a new acquaintance. This introduction, this sharing, breaks the barrier of the status stranger. Your name is directly linked to your identity; it personalizes you. When you share your name, you open a door to yourself.

    Naming things, like businesses, products or movements make them some how more human. Always a good thing in my naming opinion. When a company shares it’s name, they indeed open a door.

  • Overheard in the Brains on Firesphere today…

    Posted on April 10th, 2006 by and currently 0 commenting.

    ‘Changing the name of your company is half psychology. The other half is gut-wrenching courage.’

    -Robbin Phillips

  • Performance-Based Compensation?

    Posted on March 30th, 2006 by and currently 4 commenting.

    I recently read an article on Adweek.com that reported on a speech given by Cone & Belding‘s CEO, Steve Blamer. His message was centered around the idea that ad agencies should put their money where their mouth is and create a compensation structure based on the results of the campaigns they create for their clients.

    We all know that this isn’t a new idea by any means. And I wonder why no one has tried it yet (maybe they have and I just don’t know about it). I do know that Brains on Fire has bought the stock of some of our clients in the past…

    But I think the problem with this concept is that, if my paycheck was to be based on the naming and identity that we do for a client, then there would have to be some ground rules centered around control. A good chunk of our business is project-based. And once we create that name and/or identity for a company, we hand it over to them and that’s it. We have no control whether they decide to fully implement all of our recommendations or to do their own thing. (It happens. And it happens to all of us.) Sure, we make very strong and specific recommendations (must do’s and must never-do’s) from everything to language to uniforms to WOMM…but we are no longer in the driver’s seat. So they can listen or not. We’ve seen the ones that take our words to heart do extremely well. But that’s up to them. Like I said, it’s happened to all of us at one point or another.

    And I think that’s the gaping flaw in the performance-based compensation theory.

  • Naming Philosophies

    Posted on February 21st, 2006 by and currently 3 commenting.

    There is one for every naming company out there. Even Guy Kawasaki recently weighed in with his own opinions, some of which I agree with (avoid the trendy) – and some of which I don’t (start early in the alphabet???).

    The Latin root thing, well, I’ve ranted about it here before, so I’ll spare you the details.

    When it comes to our naming philosophy, the bottom line is that we believe in evocative names that are based on real emotions. Any monkey can go into a room or feed some info into a computer and come out with 1500 names that mean jack squat. There’s too much clutter out there anyway, so why add to it? Let your name tell a story. After all, your company is the stories it tells – why not start with the name?

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