Name competitions
Manchester’s Circle Club has rejected the name for its new restaurant chosen by a competition in Manchester Confidential… no surprise there. Competitions rarely produce decent results.
One of my recent roles saw me inherit a newspaper competition to name a new health centre. The response was relatively good, producing more than a hundred different options. But none of them impressed the judges and the client was left with a name they hate (memories of a Blue Peter kitten ensured they didn’t follow the route taken by the Circle).
Competitions tend to fail not necessarily because readers aren’t very creative, but because they are divorced from the process and unlikely to waste too much time thinking of names. Competition entrants are unlikely to understand the marketing objectives a new name is required to support or to think too hard about implementation of a new brand or sub-brand. They can’t be expected to be up to speed on the client’s objectives and the crucial messages a name should convey.
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