I read with interest in this week’s Times Higher that the 94 Group was considering a name change. As you can imagine, this unleashed enormous excitement at Fundermentals Towers, as it combines two of our favourite things: mission groups and branding exercises.
Yes, this is a great opportunity for a self-selecting coterie to come up with a fresh-faced new image and some broad, aspirational tag lines. In fact, rather than farming this out to an expensive branding agency, we at Fundermentals would like to offer our services for free.
We’ll offer them a range of options. We have to think carefully about the name. We could either have:
- A name with some basis in reality, like a translated word. For example, we could have ’94’ in Latin: ‘Nonaginta Quattuor’. Which has a learned ring to it, and is sure to please all the fresh faced students brought up on a diet of Harry Potter, as it sounds a bit like a spell. Maybe we could get the collective VCs to dress up as Dumbledore et al? No harm in appealing to the masses when we’ve got to part them with £27k.
- Or a name that is based around a neologism with no baggage. You know, like Aviva, or Carillion. Or Consignia. I don’t think anyone’s using that at the moment.
- Better still, how about a combination of the two. Combine ‘Nonaginta’ with ‘Knowledge’ and what do we get? ‘Knownaginta’! Bingo!
Next we need to think about a new tag line. Their current one, ‘To Promote Excellence through Research and Teaching’, is just a bit…meh. I mean, which university or mission group doesn’t do that? No, I think they need to either go for honesty (‘Protecting our Interests – Together‘), or something Blairite, bold – and ultimately meaningless. How about: ‘Building our World on the Foundations of Knowledge’?
Hmm. I’ll have to develop a new Priorities Generator to help me out with this one.
Alternatively, they could just steal the tag line that already exists.
- ‘Knownaginta: Because You’re Worth It’.
- ‘Knownaginta: Think Different’.
- ‘Knownaginta: It’s Good to Talk.’
- ‘Knownaginta: Probably the Best Mission Group in the World’.
Right, this is getting silly now. I think the Fundermentals’ readership should have a go. I’m willing to offer a spangly prize – which may or may not be a pen stolen from the ARMA Conference – to the best combination of new name and tag line for the 94 Group. Over to you, Twitter…
Photo by David Lezcano on Unsplash