Dive summary:
- Digital agencies often have names that make you wonder about their origin, so Digiday sat down with some leaders to find out the story behind their names.
- Razorfish was the result of blindfolding employees and pointing at words in the dictionary until something stuck; after scoring the agency's first contract, co-founder Craig Kanarick sent fellow co-founder Jeffrey Dachis to open up an account at the bank, and Razorfish was the name he used.
- Andrew Zolty, co-founder of Breakfast, shared that the agency was looking for something recognizable, but also made people "wonder why the hell we were called that."
From the article:
"The Barbarian Group – Ben Palmer, CEO
'The name is a little bit of a happy accident. My co-founders and I were deep in a brainstorm about what to name the company when I overheard Keith [Butters] and Rick [Webb] say, “Barbarians are impossible to defeat.” I thought it was a great idea, but they were actually talking about the video game ‘Civilization,’ where the barbarians are hard to defeat. The name stuck, but we thought adding the word ‘group’ made us sound more stodgy and responsible, like a law firm.'