How much effort goes into a brand name? Sometimes millions of dollars and hours of user research and analysis. Sometimes it’s a random employee who comes up with the idea through a contest (think Accenture – accent on the future). We do a lot of naming for our clients whether it be for a new initiative, a new product, a renaming of a company, an internal program, and there really is no one way to go about it. From a brainstorm to all the legal intellectual property searches, I wonder how many hours really went into some of the most well known names out there?

Many people ask me where Sandstorm came from. I should come up with a highly conceptual meaning, but that’s not how it happened. Sandstorm was a nickname of mine from college so I went with it because it was fun yet strong, spontaneous and energetic. Plus my maiden name was very difficult to pronounce, spell and remember. When I started the company in 1998 I had no idea that someday I would have an incredible agency filled with Sandstormers. Still wows me today.

We are officially announcing our prediction for the new marketing buzz word for 2010: “intelligence”. Intelligence is going to be the new way of describing a multitude of already existing words including but not limited to: web analytics, overall business experience, experience in a marketplace or segment of the market, market research, data aggregation and reporting, interactive data driven web tools… okay, basically anything that uses data will now be referred to as “intelligence”.

Coming to our web site soon. :)

One company may beg to differ. We beg to write.

I’m talking web site copy for the clients of our marketing and web design firm. We’ll beg, we’ll plead, we’ll keep our fingers crossed – just for the opportunity to write the content. And here is the number one reason why… so we can hit our deadlines.When we meet with a new client and they ask “What do you see that will hold up our deadline?” I’ll respond, start writing your content.

To help with this, we’re starting to put together content templates to help mitigate the random copywriting we get when multiple SME’s write for the same company. Erin Kissane wrote a great blog entry on content templates that goes into detail on how to use them. Thanks Erin!

Congratulations to Holly on her much deserved promotion from copywriter to writing, research and strategy! We’re still working out what the title should be on her brand new business cards, but the key to this promotion is that Holly now gets recognition for all of the exceptional usability and user research and SEO she does for our clients, as well as the high level marketing strategy and brand positioning that she is always playing a large role in. Strong copywriting skills are the backbone for Holly’s success, and we are excited for what the future holds in store for her.

Onward and upward at our marketing and web design firm! Congrats Holly :)