To bee or not to bee? That was just one of the many unanticipated dilemmas that arose during our relentless quest to find a new name for Haymarket Network when we made the audacious decision to take on the re-branding ourselves. After all, we’re good with words. Just how tricky could we make it?

After the first round of brainstorming – opening up the floor to everyone for suggestions – opinions fell into two distinct camps. Those who wanted a name that maintained a ‘Haymarket’ connection (HMStudios, Haymarket Stories, Haymarket Kitchen, HN2…), and those who felt it was time for something more abstract and unexpected.

Perhaps the biggest and boldest decision – and a definite turning point in the process – was to sever any reference to our mothership (although, course, Wonderly remains a Haymarket Media Group company) and approach the future with something distinct that celebrated 20 years’ heritage – and a legacy of award-winning work – of our own.

That’s when the fun really started.

We exhausted the apiological lexicon (Hive, Honeybees, Bufftails); came up with some eclectic portmanteau (TreeBees, EngageDay, CuttingEnd) and explored the flora and fauna of our native Richmond Borough. Still there was no clear front-runner – and focus to our thinking – until Digital Strategy Director Ed Marriage gave us a good talking to – from TED.

Finding our ‘Why?’

‘People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it’ is the principle tenet of Simon Sinek’s ‘Golden Circle’, a concept that explains why some some leaders are more influential than others, and some organisations are able to sell more products even though their competitors are equally good.

Sinek argues that while ‘every single person, every single organisation on the planet knows ‘what’ they do, 100 per cent’ – and ‘some know ‘how’ they do it – very, very few people or organisations know ‘why’ they do what they do.

So we re-framed our thought process – from the inside out. An agency-wide brand workshop – and a few hundred Post-it notes – helped clarify and consolidate our ‘What?’, with the three pillars ‘content, digital and audience’ agreed as our core capabilities.

Then we came to the fuzzy stuff. The things that get us out of bed in the morning to create world-class owned media for our clients. And that’s when it happened. The lightbulb moment.

We wanted something as unique as the service we offer.
A name that would capture the spirit of the agency and the people who work here.
A name that derives from the feelings we aim to evoke when people experience our work.
A name that will mean something different to every client due to our new approach (which Ed explains here, too).

And so Haymarket Network took ‘Wonder’ and made it our own.
So welcome to the World of Wonderly, and prepare to be WOWed.

Image courtesy of Lynne Cazaly (www.lynnecazaly.com)

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