coming up with great names

Happy New Years All!

The Wizard of Ads weekly newsletter offers rare strategic advice on how to come up with names of campaigns or organizations:

Open Big. Close Big. First Mental Image -Last Mental Image

Make us see it clearly. “Memorable” is more important than “Accurate.” Be accurate if you can. But above all, be memorable.

Verbs have magnetism. The most vivid order is Verb First, Object Last. But this is not a likely construct for a place name. “We train champions” is an example of verb first, object last.

Modifiers are a mark of weakness. Delete them at every opportunity. Mark Twain said it this way, “Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very’; your editor will edit it and the writing will be just as it should be.”