Helpful words
How to find good names
Good names do not fly out of the aether. Most are found, which requires careful looking. Books are one of the best places to look, so if you’re looking to find great names the more you read the more you’ll be successful at finding hidden gems. I’m always reading one or more works of both…
I looked at the names of every professional soccer club in the world
- About: Naming
The good, the bad, the incomprehensible Recently at A Hundred Monkeys we had the second annual Burning Ears. A celebration of the best and worst in naming. This year we were all tasked with exploring a particular category of names. I chose something close to my heart — the beautiful game. Finding the names of every…
The Burning Ears 2018
- About: Naming
For the second year in a row, the team at A Hundred Monkeys put our heads together for the Burning Ears—our annual look at the best and worst in company and product names. Last year’s Burning Ears was a product of Creative Director, Eli Altman’s naming workbook “Don’t Call it That” and his call to…
Realer than Fiction
- About: Naming
Companies and products that leapt off the screen. There’s one way to launch a brand that gives people unprecedented abilities to control public perception, make their brand feel real before it actually exists, fine tune their brand story, and have their audience’s undivided attention. It’s called fiction. Many brands have benefitted from having their name,…
Festivus for the rest of us
- About: Naming
There are more musical festivals today than you can shake a drumstick at. Most of them have names that are a total bore compared to what’s happening on stage, but the names listed here make us want the festival merch even if we don’t have a ticket. . . . When it comes to live events,…
The following brand attributes are off limits
- About: Naming
At A Hundred Monkeys we’re no strangers to helping brands find their voice. One of the key components to this process is something we call “brand attributes.” Others call it “brand personality” or “brand adjectives.” I’ll write another piece soon about how there are hundreds of branding deliverables that accomplish the same three or four…
You’ve got the whole world in your brand
- About: Naming
A name ≠ a brand. Selecting a name is hard. It’s hard to get two, or four, or seven people to agree on any one thing, especially if that thing is a name. It’s hard because the name needs to work creatively and strategically — but it also needs to work legally. Seeking trademark protection…
Mary Joe Brand
- About: Branding
These are confusing times for cannabis branding. Where is it coming from? Where is it going? What does it look and sound like? We wanted to learn a bit more about what exactly is going on in this space so we reached out to the owners of Mary Joe, a CBD-infused cold brew coffee company…
Some of your associations with names are ridiculous
- About: Naming
We all have personal associations with names, so which ones really matter? Words take us to weird places What comes to mind when you hear the word “heatwave”? You might think of slow radiating waves of energy rolling across an electric blue sky, those lasers that come out of the Flash’s eyes, a microwave, The…
Human Interest
- About: Case Studies
The Problem: Hard to take the name seriously What do you do exactly? When Captain401 first started, the vision behind the name and the brand was a guiding force that steered employers through the muddy waters of 401(k)s. However, this story wasn’t as easy for their audience to grab a hold of. Reactions from new…