The “Happy Idiot” Returns to the Naming Industry – Don’t Be a Victim

The Happy Idiot

If you’ve seen The Sting or Ocean’s 8,11,12, or 13 you know every con game has a name. The Happy Idiot, as it’s known in professional naming circles, was a naming process perfected by Landor in the 90’s. To their credit, Landor has walked away from the Happy Idiot. It’s called The Happy Idiot because a naming agency delivers a terrible name to a smiling client who’s happy with the result. The Happy Idiot was designed to be the fastest, smoothest route to client buy-in on a name, with the least amount of effort by the naming agency. It came about because someone on the client side will always object to some facet of the most powerful, memorable, effective, interesting, conversation-owning names an agency presents. Rather than pushback and take the time and effort to give the client the confidence that a particular name is the best choice, the agency deferss and smooths down the edges until there is nothing interesting or effective left in the names they are presenting.

Whether it’s a con or not depends on the intent and awareness of the agency that rolls it out. It’s possible they believe the resulting names are good, or that they simply aren’t capable of getting client consensus on net positive names. But like a con, it’s designed to make the mark feel like they are getting something of value and that the entire process was based on their own strategic thinking and actions. And like the best cons, the mark never realizes they were taken down.

 

There are three variants, The Happy Idiot, The Happy Idiot with a Passport and The Happy Idiot with a Wallflower.

To illustrate each, we’ll use actual names and case studies from a single anonymous naming agency.

 

The Happy Idiot

In this classic version the agency invents a word with no resemblance to any existing word. Because the name neither means nor implies anything, there are no objections from the client. It’s been sanitized for their protection. But in order to sell the name, the agency needs to convince the client that the invented word has positive, relevant meaning. The agency breaks the name down into morphemes(a morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of a language) and assigns positive meaning to each. They have someone with a masters degree in linguistics from Berkeley or Stanford certify the meanings – in languages neither the client or their target audience speaks – to give it weight and to assure the client that this meaningless construction is  not only full of meaning, it’s perfect for them. Thusly:

Mirvie

“Mirvie is a rich coining that draws on several Romance languages: Mira means “objective” in Italian, “purpose” or “look!” in Spanish, and the feminine form of “wonderful” in Latin. Vie is “life” in French and “means” or “paths” in Italian. Mirvie suggests the wonder of pregnancy, a means to your objective, and lifesaving, targeted insights”

 

 

client is unaware they’ve been saddled with a name that’s a liability rather than an asset – a marketing money pit. At its core, The Happy Idiot is purposeful Vanillacide