Over the years we have advised a great many clients on their choice of business name. Sometimes you can be so close to the subject you just can’t see. That’s when external expertise can help to get it right from the get-go.
I am ashamed to say that once a client called me and gave their company name which ended in ……Media. I ignored the call because I thought it was another newspaper trying to sell me advertising space – and we get quite a lot of those. It was only after subsequent calls and the firm statement “what do I have to do to give you work” that a valuable insight appeared to us all. Their company name didn’t describe what they did – they produced high quality video. From there we found the perfect domain and clarity from the outset. Similarly a local client in this area wanted to preface their business with Bowland. It was apparent to us that Ribble Valley not Bowland was getting all the publicity in the Times and Guardian lists of places to visit and appearing in essential key word searches – vital for their proposition. When you start to think of human behaviour, psychology, research, domain names and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) it’s a different train of thought.
What does your company name say about you?
For my own part when thinking of a first business name in 1991, as a creative person I pictured the brand first in my mind and could only see a logo from my childhood. As a family we enjoyed holidays in Abersoch in North Wales, and on the drive down I was always excited to see a hotel perched high above Colwyn Bay with a superb typeface (always loved typefaces) and title 70 degrees.
I used to use a drawing board to design layouts using a right angle – so it was 90 degrees – the right angle on design and marketing. Fast forward to 2012 and Andy Schofield and I were thinking of the name for this business, knowing there was always going to be an art aspect, we needed a pair. The degrees were never far away – our destination – 53.87 N 2.39 W Clitheroe and Latitude Design & Marketing (as was) and Longitude Art Gallery were formed. In 2020 we added the Manchester co-ordinates and a rebrand to truly reflect our purpose.
An interesting story
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/wales/archive/bbc-north-west-wales-colwyn-bay-hotel-70-degrees-history.pdf
