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Naming

Hot off the press: our thoughts on what's happening in the world of brand language and business writing. Warning: may contain the occasional rant.

Naming

To Name Or Not To Name?

Naming things is fun. It’s a science and an art all at once. And we love helping our clients name all sorts of things: products, processes, services, you name it (or rather, we do).

Naming, Brand & marketing

Naming

What do pancakes and naming have to do with one another? Dig in and find out.

What do pancakes and naming have to do with one another? Dig in and find out.

Brand & marketing

Naming

It’s all a bit Meta: Facebook and the parent brand problem

A name is the biggest building block in the story you tell about your brand. So Meta – the revamped Facebook parent brand – is a name with a lot on its shiny, augmented reality shoulders. And it can tell us something about the challenge posed by parent brands in general.

Naming, Brand & marketing

Naming

What makes a good name?

Your name is the shortest story you’ll ever tell about your brand. And the most important. It’s the world’s first impression of you. Brand names tell people what we’re about – with structure, sound, and a good story to back it up.

Naming, Brand & marketing

Naming

Naming is powerful. It’s tremendously powerful, believe me.

When we were watching the US presidential debates last week (no, don’t get us started), we spotted something: Donald Trump is great at naming. Bear with us.

Naming, Brand & marketing

Naming

How Google names things

Have a listen to the latest edition of our podcast, where we talk to Google’s naming guru, Amanda Peterson. She talks about cats, Bundt cakes and keeping secrets. Oh, and the joy and pain of naming stuff for Google.

Naming, Brand & marketing

Naming

Dear Met Office and Met Éireann

When we heard about #nameourstorms, we couldn't help weighing in with some advice and suggestions.

Naming, Brand & marketing

Naming

Bad names kill pigs

Our Padders has a cautionary tale for namers (and pigs) everywhere.

Naming, Brand & marketing

Naming

What do you call a dinosaur with a really long nose?

Here's our Bee with a lesson in naming (with a little help from dinosaurs).

Naming, Brand & marketing

Naming

It’s a bank, you fools

Our Neil reckons New York (and London) bike hire sponsors missed a trick when they named their schemes...

Naming, Brand & marketing

Naming

A bath bomb by any other name

There’s no love lost between Lush and Amazon this week...

Naming, Brand & marketing

Naming

Little and often

Our Ed has waxed lyrical before about how much he (and we) like the name Little Waitrose.

Naming, Customer experience

Naming

The oddest writing title of the year

Every year, The Bookseller gives an award for the oddest book title. They’ve just announced the shortlist and there are some real corkers. (We’d vote for God’s Doodle: The Life and Times of the Penis. Because we secretly love smut.)

Naming, Brand & marketing

Naming

And the BAFTA for best tagline goes to…

Roll out the red carpet, the BAFTA nominations are here. Film distributors are currently competing to try and match critical acclaim with box office success. And as a result, film posters are everywhere. Each of them sprinkled with star-ratings, superlatives and spin.

Naming, Brand & marketing

Naming

Think little

Small supermarkets are here to stay. In fact, for most people, it’s hard to remember what life was like before them.

Naming, Brand & marketing

Naming

Say it wrong and you’re officially not my friend

Band names have got more and more cryptic over the years.

Naming

Naming

Do you have Dishoom?

Dishoom Café lives in the heart of Covent Garden. It’s modelled on the Irani cafés found in the heart of Bombay and it’s named after the sound effect used in Bollywood films to make punching in fight scenes more dramatic. Amazing.

Naming, Brand & marketing

Naming

Jungle fusion pioneers

When I was little, I got a bike for my birthday. I was dead chuffed. It had 15 gears, it was blue (my favourite colour) and when I saw it was called ‘Jungle Lightning’ I knew I was going to be the coolest kid in all Winchester.

Naming, Brand & marketing

Naming

Daddy Long Blog

The Daddy Long Legs. An insect pretending to be a spider, with wings. Its legs are so long and out of proportion, that it flies haphazardly and off balance.

Naming, Brand & marketing

Naming

Naming lessons from the streets of London

Many moons ago I embarked on an exciting career as a place name scholar. I had my brown suede jacket, my thick-rimmed spectacles, my library card, and a curiously niche specialism: the names of the city of London.

Naming