Yo-Good?: An Advertising Fable
A Client walks into the Agency.
“I need a ground-breaking name for a new yoghurt drink we have created!” He says. “We will be targeting the gen pop between ages 18-55.”
“Yes, yes, we will accede to your request! ” says the Global Account Director, Keeper of Business.
“We will form a team of our best strategists, marketers, data analysts and most awarded creatives! And we will reconvene as soon as possible with the best name for this new category-breaking product!”
A handshake is exchanged. A proposition written. The brainstorming begins.
A group of the Brightest Minds, gathered in a room to ponder one of society’s most pressing concerns – the name of this revolutionary yoghurt-drink.
“Yo…Good?” suggests one planner. “Hmm...,” the conclave looks to their fearless leader, the Creative Director, Weaver of Words, Stringer of Sentences, Maker of Manifestos. “Let’s keep going,” he says.
“Yogilicious. Yolo. y0ga.”
The Bright Minds take turns throwing names into the gauntlet.
“Zoop. Fruzé. Probiyotique.”
The names now resemble spelling mistakes in a third-grader’s English homework. The Creative Director is satisfied.
Voices are raised. Arguments are made. Tears are shed. Finally, ten Names are chosen to be sent to the Client.
The Deck Designers descend upon the made-up words and adorn beautiful imagery unto each one. The Deck is sent along with a careful worded electronic letter to the client at exactly twenty-three hundred and fifty-nine hours.
The Client responds, two weeks later of course. He was on a very important trip in the Maldives. A decision has been made by those above him. The Decision Makers are not happy it seems. They who hold the keys to the Budget, the Stakeholders of Internal and External. They don’t like the ten Names. They want something that sounds like Zoop with the youthfulness of Yolo and the exoticness of Probiyotique. The agency’s Keeper of Business is not happy. He conveys this in a harshly worded email to the team.
And so the Bright Minds gather once again, looking to their fearless Leader of Creativity once more. The fearless leader takes out a crumpled page from their first round of discussions. Yo-good is now back in play.
More voices raised. More arguments made. More tears are shed.
They send the new Names in a new Deck, with imagery shinier than before. The client is happy. “Yo-Good is perfect!”, he says.
And so, one month later, they launch “Hey, Yo-Good?” nationwide.
It is their most creative, revolutionary, category-breaking campaign yet. The marketers love it. The competitor brands say “Why didn’t I think of that?” An article about Yo-Good is written in an industry publication on consumer trends. The “Hey, Yo-Good?” Campaign goes on to win every major industry award. The Bright Minds proceed to put the project into their respective portfolios. Yo-Good fills the shelves in the probiotic-dairy-beverages aisle in every supermarket from the east to the west.
A housewife, of the 35-40 Tribe of Women also known as Aunties, shopping on a Saturday notices Yo-Good on the shelf. But no, it is not the shiny branding or packaging or even the hallowed name “Yo-Good”, forged from over a hundred hours of brainstorming, that first catches her eye.
It is the giant red “BUY TWO GET ONE FREE” sign that draws her in. She stares at it for a moment, doing the mental arithmetic, then back at the regular brand she used to buy. She shrugs, not giving a shit about the thousands of hours put in by the Bright Minds, the Deck Designers or even the great Weaver of Words into creating and marketing Yo-Good. She puts 3 bottles of Yo-good in her trolley because it is fifty cents cheaper per bottle.
Yo-Good is lauded as a smashing success.
The Agency and Client pat themselves on the back, proud of the great idea that they brought forth into the world. Surely, it will make a difference to the lives of the 18-55 somethings everywhere. Yogurt drinks as the world would know it would never be the same again.
The Client doesn’t tell the Agency that they will now run the same campaign for the next five years because all of their advertising budget was spent on the naming process.
The end.