It’s interesting to dive back in time to see who the corporations have turned to for the naming of their products and services, to see who was responsible for naming fails and who approached this process in an unconventional way. It was not always advertising agencies  that took the job. Let’s take for example Ford Motor company – they hired a poet do to the naming of their new E-car models.

Back in 1955 the marketing department of the motor company had long-listed 300 potential names to do the task. But all of them were professionally burdened and that’s why the marketing executive of the company David Wallace decided to recruit no one but the modernist poet Marianne Moore to get their naming done. Who would understand words better than an award winning writer of poetry?

Marianne Moore as Corporate Naming Expert

The Pulitzer prize winner made her own list of naming proposals. Probably no one was surprised to see that a poet could work with words as good as the advertising agencies’ copywriters do. When Moore was approached to give proposals for naming Ford’s “E-car” project, she had one month to think. On November 7th she submitted her list of naming proposals. Among them there were really notable ones such as “Varsity Stroke”, “Pastelogram”, “Resilient Bullet”, “Mongoose Civique” and “Ford Silver Sword”. Moore submitted her last naming proposal on December 8th and it was the most famous of all – “Utopian Turtletop”.

The company rejected all of her ideas and finally decided to name the E-car after Henry Ford’s son – Edsel. That choice resulted as one of the greatest naming disasters in corporate history. The story of the E-car naming means that creativity is one of the major things that defines the successful naming choice. If you think that the naming ideas you have about your business are lacking of creativity, then you should consider find creative party to help.