Invisible Brand

Lucian Camp explains how he struck rebranding gold in the unlikely environment of his own bath

We all get bored too quickly in this business. There’s a famous story about a company chairman grumbling to his marketing director that the company’s advertising hasn’t changed for ages and everyone must be absolutely sick and tired of it by now. “Actually, Chairman,” replies the marketing director, “it hasn’t started to appear yet.”

Speaking as a Chairman, I have to say that I now understand this story very well. It is now a little over three years since the merger between the two agencies that made up cchm:ping (yes, that’s right, CCHM and Ping): at that time we adopted the cchm:ping brand “ as a short-term solution with a six to nine month shelf life.” What’s more, it’s a little over a year since I was lying in my bath one evening (I know, I know, too much information) and suddenly, from somewhere, the name “Tangible” appeared in my mind and I thought, “Now, that would be a very good name for the agency. What the hell have I done with my loofah?”

So, about two and a half years late and a little over a year since I thought of it, Tangible is now, well, tangible, and cchm:ping has pinged off into the sunset. And many of us, including me, are so exhausted by the whole business that, in truth, we’re probably more relieved than delighted.

Also, to be honest, a kind of rather unexpected complication turned up in the middle of the proceedings that did have quite a big effect on the outcome. Last summer, we sold the agency so that we became part of the Cello Group. Cello owns a number of agencies, until recently all independently-branded, and was on the lookout for a new brand that it could gradually introduce across its agency division to give it a more coherent appearance. Guess what, they fell in love with Tangible.

This was good and kind of flattering in many ways, but it did rather complicate matters and mean that we had to adopt a sub-brand, or suffix, to distinguish ourselves from all the other Tangibles. That, as you can see, is, unsurprisingly, “Financial.” While obviously factually correct, I’m not loving this. We didn’t really want a suffix at all, let alone one that makes our whole name sound like it’s being pronounced by a Bristol farmer. And the presence of the suffix is bound to distract some attention from the wonderfulness of the prefix, so to speak: think about it for a minute, and you’ll realise what a brilliant name Tangible actually is for an agency that works in the abstract, invisible, intangible world of financial services and aims to turn its clients’ brands and propositions into something real and tangible which people can relate to, engage with, understand and remember. Pure gold, I reckon. 22-carat.

This is good. My (slight) grumpiness about the suffix has re-enthused me about the excellence of the prefix. I hope you feel the same way. We’re not rebranding this agency again any time soon.