When choosing a name for an ad agency, since everyone is moving away from the Huey Duey & Louie law firm-style model, one should choose a name that connotes something interesting, something exciting, something that elicits staying power. Perhaps Art Bradshaw and Emily Rex who just dubbed their new agency Departure think the notion of leaving is better than staying. Now, one could joke about this new name as Adrants reader Chuck did when he wondered why they didn’t call themselves Leaving or Closing or Back Later or Track 9 or Running Late or Exit (wait, that one’s sort of taken) or Last One Out Turn Out the Lights. But that would be mean.
Bradshaw and Rex are likely taking a “we are departing from norm” direction, hence the name. Laudable but when a press release describes the agency with such eloquent business blather as, “Departure is a progressive advertising agency that gives aggressive brands the power to confidently address ‘the new’: new media, new conceptual approaches and new ways of making sense of the changing reality of the market,” we’re thinking they might as well have named themselves Same As Every Other Agency.
Especially when creating humorous bullshit such as Compelling Truth which they define as “the single most important statement a company can make about itself – communicated in a dramatic way” and pass off as some new, never before encountered style of doing business.” Um, no. Ever heard of Unique Selling Proposition? It’s been around since before most of us were born. But who can fault an agency for slapping a new label as something that’s been around forever and passing it off as something new? After all, that’s what agencies are supposed to do.
