| The name game
by
Leila M. Ugincius
Virginia Business
January 2004
Neathawk
Dubuque knows a thing or two about the importance of
name recognition. For 20 years, the advertising/marketing
and public relations firm has helped clients such as
Performance Food Group, Meals on Wheels and even the
Virginia State Police with branding campaigns to establish
market identity. But the Richmond agency overlooked
its own conundrum: few people could spell or pronounce
its name.
Neathawk Dubuque doesn’t exactly roll off the
tongue. Originally called Market Strategy Inc. (which
caused some confusion in the marketplace as to what
the company actually did) company founders Roger Neathawk
and Susan Dubuque decided to change its name a few years
ago. While there’s nothing wrong with a little
familial pride, Neathawk and Dubuque are no Smith and
Jones.
The firm didn’t seem to appreciate the irony of
having such a tongue twister of a name until pal and
fellow advertising guru Harry Jacobs, chairman emeritus
of The Martin Agency, complained about it. If a colleague
couldn’t keep it straight, how could the general
public deal with the company’s complicated spelling
and pronunciation?
If they were in a different profession, the principals
might have changed the firm’s name. But since
Neathawk Dubuque is, after all, an advertising agency,
the founders thought it would be easier — and
more effective — to just take out an ad. Plus,
it was “the easiest way to poke fun at ourselves,”
says Neathawk Dubuque’s Tracy Tierney.
This fall the firm launched its own campaign with newspaper
ads and promotional mailers, touting Neathawk Dubuque
as “the name you can’t remember. The ads
you can’t forget.” The campaign aims to
educate people about the agency, explain what it does
and clear up any confusion about a name of which it’s
proud. “One of the things we wanted to do was
bring attention to our name,” Tierney says, but
the jury’s still out on whether people can spell
it.
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