Alex Churchill

The Ontario Government’s Flick Off campaign, a project that I was ACD and copywriter on, exposes the essential dichotomy in communicating conservation messages. Criticism of the campaign has pooled in two equally self-righteous sinkholes – the prudes and the prescriptivists.

The prudes are dominated by Christian teens (or, as Richard Dawkins might say – “teenaged children of Christian parents”), grandmothers and provincial Tories. Their argument is a simple one – that “Flick Off” is obscene.

The prescriptivists on the other hand take a slightly higher road. They include the scoffing Linwood Barclay of the Toronto Star, small town letter to the editor writers, and the entire Lynne Truss fanclub. In short, the prescriptivists (and I’m misusing that term, but then as a dedicated descriptivist I reserve the right to do so) feel that Flcik Off somehow degrades our language and ourselves.

Of course, during the course of developing this concept, we ran into both pools before we even got out the door – and I call bullshit on both of them. I thought from the beginning that both groups were uncomfortable with the slogan for the simple reason that it was the first time a conservation message had been thrown at them, without watering down the message, or apologizing for the base-line idea that in order to influence climate change we have to start with individual action.

And that point is the watershed for all conservation messages from here on in. Flick Off’s unappolagetic approach is the right message at the right time and I am proud to have had a hand in creating it.

In August 1997, Fast Company published a piece by Tom Peters extolling the virtues of “The Brand Called You“. In Peters’ words – “To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You.”

However, there was one important aspect of branding that Peters overlooked – corporate identity. This element of Brand You is largely out of your control – with the exceptions of going from “Jamie” to “James” or “Pat” to “Patrick”. If you began your professional career as “Henrich Cumstein” and showed up one day calling yourself “Carver Straight”, Brand You would quickly be dismissed as Brand Crazy. Let’s face it, Peters aside, when it comes to product names, you’re stuck with what your mama gave you.

And that is where I sit now. With parenthood mere weeks away, my wife and I cannot seem to agree on a name for our daughter. Our back and forths on the subject include such account handler comments as “too trendy”, “too girly” and “sounds like a dog’s name”. OK, maybe that last one is unique to this situation.

As the process has drawn on, I began to realize just how much like a branding operation it was becoming – and not in the Business 2.0 touchy feely way that Peters outlines. I mean in the real agency/client way. We have entrenched ideas of what we see this client’s business becoming. We are getting little to no feedback on the direction they wish to take. We think we are smarter than they are. Finding options is not the problem, editing them down is. And so on.

I thought it might be helpful then to put together a bit more formalized presentation of the possibilites for the naming and corporate ID of what I now like to call “Brand Poo”:

BRAND POO CREATIVE BRIEF

The Churchill household will soon be welcoming a little bundle of sub-brand. Containing only X chromosomes, the sub-brand will be targeted at males (the parent company is agnostic on the subect of the sub-brand’s preference that way, but is going on the numbers here), and people born after Y2K. The name and ID/logo of the sub-brand MUST be in the format: BRAND Churchill.

Primary audiences are positive influences, life-long buddies, and true loves.

Secondary audiences are Ivy League recruiters and scholarship personnel, professional golf scouts and nice diminutive boys with large trust funds.

Incidental audiences are large law and investment firm recruiting departments and political organizers.

The parent company projects dynamism, youngishness, successishness and love. They project a sporty, rather than jocky, image and are moderately intellectual without being overly tweedy. Both sides of the parent company come from and upper middle class backgrounds with Slavic and Celtic roots but with little connection to either. They are, by all easily visible markers WASPy yuppies. There is no religious or “spiritual” affiliation within the parent company. They wish to extend their umbrella over the Brand Poo project without overtaking it completely.

NOTE: There is a concern in the parent company about brands that are too trendy (Emma, Ava), sound like they belong to a sex worker (Amber, Chelsea) or smell of wet dog (Toby). This last piece of information is offered as a guideline for your time only and should not overly influence your work.

DELIVERABLES

1) A name and logo.

2) Any additional materials you think may help in accomplishing the goals for Brand Poo.

YOUR REWARD

You get to name our child for Chrissakes, what else do you want?

SUBMISSION

Email me and win yourself the honour of branding your first human.

LEGAL

The Churchill Group reserves the right to not use any of the submissions and instead go with our current front runner – Griselda.