Here at Leasing Life we’re all for simplicity, straight-talk and frank conversation.
As a business-to-business title, it’s important that ideas can be communicated in a straightforward manner, without unnecessary embellishment. We like no-frills data and statements of fact.
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However, as delicate journalistic types at heart, we do have an appreciation for the finer nuances of language, the poetic edge that a well-tuned headline or top notch quote can produce.
We yearn for the exercise of a little creativity where we can get away with it, and express true admiration whenever a PR or marketing executive manages to do the same.
We also like smart branding: take retail motor finance firm MoneyBarn, with its moniker suggesting an agrarian warehouse simply heaving with accessible capital, or Funding Circle, with its easy to grasp, indicative imagery.
But by the same token, we get very frustrated when companies stolidly refuse to pull themselves out of the everyday.
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By GlobalDataWhen even their name belies a utilitarian lack of interest.
The worst culprits by far are the web-based companies, which simply brand themselves as the function at the heart of their business, adding a web-domain ending.
Public enemy number one has to be everyone’s least favourite set of second-hand banger-wranglers; webuyanycar.com.
Is there any majesty in this name? Any mystery? No wonder their adverts are nothing more than a bunch of people raving the name over and over to a repetitive, three-year-old-with-a-biscuit-tin beat.
There is nothing they need to advertise: the name says it all.
But "Oh," you cry, "surely such an instantly memorable, succinctly descriptive brand name is pure marketing genius!"
No. As anyone who has recently watched television in the UK will no doubt agree, the campaign is a complete turn-off.
Sure, you want to sell your car, but do you want to sell it to the company with the advert that gives you a headache, and with the name so dully descriptive it makes the guy who named Phones4U seem like Shakespeare?
There is a reason that comparison site Gocompare.com changed its ad campaign from a bloated moron hollering the name of their company over and over again, to a series of vignettes depicting celebrities assassinating said fool.
Although asset finance and television advertising are worlds that rarely meet, we must make sure the lofty world of leasing does not stumble towards such pitfalls.
Companies such as assetfinancebroker.com certainly make sure their customers know exactly where they are heading – at no point will anyone type in that web address and be disappointed because they actually wanted to read about celebrity hairstyles – but let’s hope they don’t start bellowing the company name over a drum machine beat any time soon.
The same goes for Finance 4 Business, which is entering slippery slope territory by putting a "4" in the middle of its name.
Also the company’s website, f4b.biz, is a puzzling bit of tautology, making it essentially finance4business.business.
Why save so much time and energy in abbreviating your name, only to add an extraneous second ‘business’ to the end?
Brand names stand for a lot.
Imagine if Richard Branson had decided not to bother. Instead of an iconic group, always ready for a wink-wink-nudge-nudge innuendo headline, we’d have been shopping at Music-and-music-paraphernalia Megastore, and jetting to America on We-fly-you-across-the-Atlantic Airlines.
Would you really buy this magazine, or read the website, if instead of good old Leasing Life we were simply entitled We-write-words-for-money.co.uk? I think not.
All is not lost, however.
There are still companies out there with a flair for the eye-catching soubriquet.
Cassiopae springs to mind, the French leasing software provider’s name bringing to mind the constellation Cassiopeia, reflecting their lofty goals.
The UK’s own Black Horse, the motor finance arm of the solid-sounding Lloyds, has its own power, speaking of strength and an impression of always rushing forwards.
But to find truly great finance brands, one must look further afield.
To China in fact, the home of the superb-sounding leasing business Zoomlion. What grace! What power! What a lord among leasing brands.
Marketing directors take note: Welendmoneytomakemoney.com-style names are yesterday’s news: the king of the leasing jungle is here.
