The other day I was in WPP global media agency Mediaedge:CIA.  Whoops – I mean MEC.  It was Campaign’s agency of the year in the UK in 2010. As they pointed out in the press release a few months back when they changed the name, that colon (between Mediaedge & MEC) has caused issues for people for ages.  Half the time they called themselves MEC anyway. Let’s be honest, its holding company WPP – started out as a shell company name bought by Martin Sorrell. As most industry old hands will know it stands for Wire & Plastic Products (shopping carts originally).

There is now some sense of poignancy to WPP’s name origins.  It reflects the pragmatic commercial nature of WPP’s founder. Regardless of whether WPP is where you would have started as a brand name – you combine it, the story, the Sorrell personna,  the PR machine – it is truly a powerful brand.

Now for the irony.   Many an agency spend their time advising major brands on how to differentiate their brand from the competition, or steer their communications so a consumer atleast understands what they do or stand for.   So why do so many agency names, agency naming, name changes and their own branding…. seem to owe less to imagination/differentiation and more to the letters left over in a hand of scrabble.  I’ve puzzled over this. I figure there is a simple answer.  There must exist a book on naming an agency.  I’ve never seen it, but clearly there are rules. Therefore, there must be a book agencies buy to help pick names. When you have your first child you get a book of names to inspire you.  When car makers name cars they use a book of animal names, or solar bodies, or just letters and numbers.  So, for the first time I reveal the 7 strategies to naming an agency. I use the word strategy loosely.

1. The Crosby Stills Nash & Young. This is the stock route and its still the most popular.  You take the founders name and try to make them sound like a decent rock band. Occassionally, people get the order wrong and you sound like a firm of solicitors – Archibald Ingram Streatham, Bartle Bogle Hegarty etc.  Don’t you think Bartle Hegarty Bogle sounds like a better band?  Here, of course, you are trading on the fame of the founders. You are also angling for the “pay me more when you buy me out effect”… because my name is above the door. At this point, the rock band ensemble strategy meets the Dolce & Gabana premium brand price stategy. The Crosby Stills Nash & Young route does have a few key issues.  First, it relies on the founders being successful, famous and sticking together.  In the agency world that can never be relied on.  Second, sometimes you may want to add the fourth or fifth Beatle.  Hurrell Dawson – added 2 senior partners a year or so into its life in Mosely and Grimmer (one has now left). WCRS (see acronyms later) – which was founded in 1979 as Wight Collins Rutherford & Scott – added its 5th Beatle at one point.  Having got the name order right and sounding more rock band than solicitor, WCRS went public. WCRS  then had the connudrum of how to accocomodate its fifth & sixth Beatle in 1985 with  Roger Matthews & Alfredo Marcantonio. (see 7 ages of WCRS).  It plumped for…wait for it…WCRS Matthews Marcantonio.  This from the agency that did BMW’s 7 series, Orange & Carling Black Label. Oh yes – the other issue associated with option one  is ego.  This breaks down into 2 key decisions. A.  Is your name in the title.  B. Where does it come in the order. WCRS is of course now part of the Engine Group – see group names later.

2. The pragmatic acronym. Having spent years with the names above the door – even if only a few – you just get sick (or the receptionist does) of saying the whole sentence everyday and 20 times a day if you do new business.  Add to that that the original founders have retired, passed on, or most young people who work there or you sell to go “who is he?” and the pragmatism wins.  Bartle Bogle Hegarty becomes BBH, Vallance Carruthers Coleman Priest becomes VCCP, J Walter Thompson becomes JWT.  You get the idea.Further down the line there is the international merger. The powerful UK agency is bought by the big network. In the process, commonly, the genius of the founders and their history gets lost as the international name and the largest footprint from the USA holds sway.  Abott Mead Vickers becomes AMV becomes BBDO. Boase Massimi Pollitt becomes BMP becomes DDB.  In the middle are the nonsense years where you hold onto both names for “transition”.  BMP DDB, or AMV BBDO hover for a while. Imagine if brand’s adopted the same strategy.  Between Marathon & Snickers name change we’d of  had Marathon Snickers.  What we’d recommend to others isn’t what the industry does itself. By the way OMD, Omnicom’s large media network is the merger of the DDB media network Optimum Media & BBDO’s Media Direction.  See how they cleverly both had “media” in the names. Media companies tend to do that and tell you what they do in their name.

3. The better legacy scrabble answer. Occaisonally, someone never starts the dance over time from founder names above the door that drifts into meaningless acronym to anyone who doesn’t know them 20 years ago.  The best example of this is PHD.  From its outset it was an acronym of its founders names Patterson, Horswell & Durden. Cleverly they ordered them to make it mean something else that was memorable and had another “intelligent” meaning which fitted their brand persona.  Now PHD is one of Omnicom’s global media agencies.  All of the founders originally sold out and then left – yet their company idea, their legacy and their names live on. Give these guys a job at a branding agency. PHD by the way is a 3 letter no vowel and 9 point score in Scrabble.

4. A made up name that means something or not.  If you put your ego in check and forget that when it comes to sell, or negotiate your leaving package, that having your name above the door gets you more personal fame and personal cash – you might do what you advise your clients. That is invent a brand name that has some meaning and resonance for what you do or believe. Mother, Adam & Eve, The Red Brick Road, Seven Stars, are among the more recent on this route.  If you go back you’ll find previous successful agencies in their time in creative and media world with names like Yellowhammer, i-Level, or Naked. What is intersting about this route is that it also tends to come with a passion to change the way the industry works…to buck the model.  That leads to an idea as to how they believe they want to be different and a brand name sort of just follows.  Of course, no doubt at some point in the future the years of building a differentiated and successful business coincide with the desire to sell up and cash in. At which point the defending of the name coincides with commercial pragmatism.  When you are acquired or you merge with someone else the name that has the most value for international business wins. The buisiness is worth more and you get more cash. “Hey I had principles when I started – but I’ve taken the risk and worked hard to build this thing. I’ll give up on the name for more cash.”  I once knew a fairy whose name was nuff. Would you change you name for money I asked?  She said “Fair Enough”.

5.  Car branding for media networks. Then there are the international media agencies who do branding.  Firstly, it is really hard for a few people to set up a media company – especially if it buys these days.  So you have very few founders names above the door in media agenies to start with.  Often they have grown up like spin-off sitcoms from their original parent ad agency and then the knocking together of all those same entities globally. Unlike Cheers which begot Frasier – the nature of international media agency brand names has more of a Ronseal approach.  There are 3 routes.  A. Eventually end up with a merger of acronyms – see MEC and OMD earlier.  B.  They find a thesauraus and look for words that sound like they are large, powerful and intelligent: Mindshare, Zenith, Starcom, Maxus, Carat, Initiative, Universal. Coincidentally – if any of these turned up as names for models from Ford you would not be surprised. C. You take the word media and add something to it: Mediacom, Mediavest, Media Planning Group. You get the idea.

6. Bond villain holding companies. In the world where agencies are now owned by holding companies, who are listed on stockmarkets and talk more about this quarter’s growth than the work, we then have the holding company brand name.  These holding companies are run more by the money men  than the ad men.  The names are neither meaningful as words or with the exceptions of WPP – as pragmatic as to be a bought off the self  as a shell company acronym that just does. Some, like Publicis, started life as an ad agency. As for the ideas behind most of them – perhaps the key driver was global domination. I asked my children to suggest what sort of companies do you think Omnicom, Interpublic Group, Havas, Aegis,WPP, Publicis are?  One of them said “are they names of the companies owned by James Bond Villains? I’m only saying.

7. The  legend branding route. You may end up creating an agency and making a lot of money. The truth is that some people had an idea, were always bothered about doing great work and doing the things the market wouldn’t. You may end up like David Ogilvy with your name still over the door of a global network years after you invented many of the rules on how to do better advertising.  You may end up like Bill Bernbach – the legendary creative with your name reduced to one of the Bs in global ad network DDB.  You could of course become a global network based on 2Bs and a H:  Bartle Bogle & Hegarty.  All legends, all with very different skills  and still with the power that when you say BBH it conjures up their names and what they’ve done. Of course, BBH is now part owned by Publicis – but the majority is held by BBH. So they still control their own destiny. As their strapline says. They zig whist others zag. You may end up like Patterson Horswell & Durden.  Known by those in the media industry at the time as 3 people who went against the network agency model, who built a business on better first and bigger second. No longer involved in PHD, but aware that many of the ideas behind it live on. Or you may end up like James Walter Thompson who in  1868 aged 24 completed service in the U.S. Marines Corp on the USS Saratoga.  He then moved to New York to find a job. Carlton hired Thompson as a bookkeeper. Thompson found that coming up with concepts and sales were much more profitable. He became he  a very succesful salesman for the small company. In 1877, he bought the agency for $500 and renamed it J. Walter Thompson Company. You may know where this idea ended up. It’s JWT. Of course we cannot forget Maurice & Charles Saatchi whose name lives on not as initials, but as a byword for an ad agency people know. Rather uniquely, not only is their name not reduced to an acronym, but like New York, it was so good they named it twice and twice again. First in the Saatchi & Saatchi network they founded, that they then left, but still continues as part of the Publicis Group. Second in the new global network and holding company they founded of M & C Saatchi that exists today. Global, founders names with intact initials and surnames.  These guys know a thing about branding, legend and legacy. They have a simple strapline that the company stands for “Brutal Simplicity of Thought”. I rememberwhat all these guys did and what they stand for many years on. That is powerful branding.If you want an acronym then QED,respect to you all. There is something for anyone to think about when they start up in a new agency or work in one that already exists. Good agency branding is really no more than “I wish I’d done that”.