When my wife and I had our oldest son, we spent a ton of time trying to figure out names, so as not to saddle him with some poorly thought-out albatross for the rest of his life. When it comes to living, breathing carbon-based entities, it’s not fair to try and be creative at all costs. But when it comes to a living, breathing digital entity, I have no such reservations.

Recently, I was tasked with naming our Armstrong|Shank agency blog — a project I was excited to do. The challenge in naming a company blog is finding a name that fits what you do and also creates an expectation for what the reader is about to experience. Now, if you’re a financial business, the direction seems simple: you want the name to say “We know money.” If you’re in the ag business, you want the name to say “We know farming, or ranching, or whatever.”

But what do you say when you’re in advertising, an industry whose split personality straddles the line between art and business? As one who spent a number of hours coming up with various name ideas, I’ve found it can be especially tough. Do you try and push your business expertise? Your creative expertise? Do you get arrogant and try to do both? Good question.

In my search, I was all over the landscape — marketing and advertising-related puns (“Ad Libs”), inspirational messages (“Insight that Incites”), esoteric creative concepts (“Crawlspace”), names related to our agency’s street address (“7450”) or pyramid-shaped logo (“Four-Point Perspective”) and so on. I asked for input from all over the building, which was both helpful … and not. More opinions meant more people to please, which wasn’t easy.

At one point, I took a new philosophy toward it. While this blog is meant to be many things — a gathering place for business professionals looking for insight, a resource for marketing expertise and a forum for creative expression — the one thing it has to be, due to its very nature as a blog, is free-flowing … not boring, stuffy business-speak.

I extended my name search into realm of the absurd. I tried to develop an expectation of creativity in the same way that a hard-rockin’, mind-blowin’ movie trailer psyches you up for the latest action flick. Names like “A Bullet Train from the Wind-swept Plains,” “Flight of the Magic Chicken Man,” and “Intergalactic Ferrari Force 5000” were born. I didn’t expect any of them to realistically make the cut — and boy oh boy, did they not make the cut — but I have to admit they still held a small place in my heart.

While the wacky detour didn’t produce an acceptable idea, it did help with the process of elimination. Regrouping, I went back to my drawing board to see where I’d been before. On second glance, one name stuck out to me. I presented it to Ed, my creative director, on the grounds that it was simple, appropriate to both the creative and business sides of our business, and it had potential for an interesting design. He agreed, it moved on to the big boss Susan, and now it sits at the top of this page.

If you mapped out my naming quest, it’d look like one of those Family Circus cartoons where Jeffy traipses in, over and around every square inch of the neighborhood. But at the end of the day, much like little Jeffy, I feel we ended up safe on the doorstep, with a blog name that fits to boot.

Ford has some problems right now.  The economy has Ford asking tough questions about the future of their organization.  One of their dilemmas is whether or not to suspend new product development projects in order to stockpile cash.  They certainly need the cash, but as Ford’s global product development chief Derrick Kuzak points out in this report from the Detroit News, “Outstanding products are the heart of any turnaround of our business and its future success.”  If Ford stops investing in new product development, what future are they saving by stockpiling cash now?

Not an easy decision.  This is similar to the branding decisions that all businesses face when economic times are tough.  Companies worried about troubled economic times will often decrease spending on advertising.  Short term, they “save” money.  But long term, they risk losing traction in the marketplace.

So, what is the answer? In “How to Market in a Recession” John Quelch of the Harvard Business School weighs in by saying, “This is not the time to cut advertising.”  Brands that increase advertising during recessions improve market share and see a higher return on their advertising dollar.  While actually raising ad budgets may seem impossible for some, Quelch recommends at least maintaining current spending levels.

At Armstrong|Shank, we advise our clients to look at their marketing mix and see how it might be restructured to include more direct marketing tactics.  For example, the Web offers many scalable, measurable tactics that can be tied to performance measures.  Maybe some dollars can be moved over to a targeted pay-per-click campaign or to an online lead generating campaign.

However, you don’t want to totally abandon your brand advertising.  Often branding tactics are the foundation for other direct efforts.  Specifically in the business-to-business sector, branding activities are critical.  Marketer Galen De Young has a nice discussion on this topic in his article “B2B Search Marketing: Branding’s Best Friend” on SearchEngineLand. He notes that, “…in the B2B world, customer acquisition is directly related to branding, a longer-term initiative.”

Economic turmoil can be a scary time for businesses.  It is sometimes tough to see how we might make it through the storm to sunnier days.  While trying to figure that out, it is imperative to think ahead to when things turn around and ask where your organization should be positioned at that time.  Smart marketing decisions now will make all the difference then.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user yourpaldave.