What’s In A Name Order?
A sound engineer once told me that he was working on an ad with Fred&Farid® when he said something along the lines of, ‘What do think of this mix, Farid and Fred?’
Before giving their opinion, the premier grenouilles de publicite replied, ‘Uh, (name of engineer, who will remain anonymous), not Farid and Fred. Never Farid and Fred. Always Fred and Farid.’
Leaving aside the – ahem – continentality of this assertion, it does throw up (deliberate turn of phrase there) the issue of name order, how it happens and what it means.
I’ve given this an entire crap’s-worth of thought and have come to the conclusion that it is a bit random, but maybe if we look at some examples we can see if there’s any method behind the madness:
Tom and Walt: London’s original team-as-brand. Would ‘Walt and Tom’ have worked as well? Yep, but running ‘Walt’ into ‘and’ is a little bit trickier for the tongue than running ‘Tom’ into it.
Richard (Flintham) and Andy (McLeod): This one makes no sense at all. It gives you ‘and And’ to say. Andy and Richard would be much better. Too late now (unless Richard and Andy at BBH want to try reversing their names).
Nigel and Paul: To be honest, I can’t remember if they were Paul and Nigel or Nigel and Paul. When I worked with Daryl the order often swapped and I think that happened with N&P too.
Shit.
I think, against some pretty stiff competition, this is the most pointless post I’ve ever written.
I should really have just deleted it and let you all speculate as to the wisdom of hiring Jonathan Burley at CHI and who’s going to replace him at Leo Burnett.
But I thought you’d prefer something, however shit, to read.
And people love a Fred&Farid-are-ponces story, don’t they?