Lateral Thinking: Change Your Name

With so many talented creative people working in advertising and marketing, it always amazes us how little case of true lateral thinking we see.

There are very few reasons for this, and very many excuses.

One of the most used excuses is that something is said to be a given and can not be changed.

Like media (30"TV), air date, production budget, target audience, distribution, packaging etc.

A lot of times better solutions are not discovered or even ignored because something is not allowed to be changed.

The case of Carribean Airlines proves what a waiste such a way of working can be.

Carribean Airlines is Trinidad & Tobago's national airline and was named BWIA.

Now who is pleased to hear a travelling agent say a name like BWIA?

You have never heard of it so it sounds small.

And because it sounds like a small airline, you start thinking of incompetent pilots and small old rotten planes.

When BWIA hired UK ad legend Dave Trott to do their advertising he didn't say: "Hey, let's do a great TV commercial and make some kick ass posters."

Instead he said: "I have thought long and hard about this and you have to change your name." (and your logo as well)

Fortunately no one told Dave Trott that he could not change the name of the airline.

Carribean Airlines is so much easier to do advertising for than BWIA.

When you hear the name Carribean Airlines you think "Big" and "Reliable" (and probably "nice"and "sunny" as well).

By changing the name Carribean Airlines turned a $60 million loss into a profit in only 4 months.

When you really start thinking lateral things can take of pretty fast.