Friday, March 7, 2014

English Kings on Advertising.

I don’t have a lot of knowledge about English kings. It’s one of those subjects I’d really have to bone up on if I ever make it to Jeopardy! I have a hard time telling the Plantagenets from the Anjous from the Tudors from the Stuarts.

Aethelred the Unready. Woefully unprepared for marauding Danes.
That said, one thing I really appreciate about English monarchies was what today we would call a “naming convention.”

A lot of their kings they didn’t just call by name, they attached a little epithet that really helps matters.

There was, for instance:
  • ·      Ethelred the Unready
  • ·      Harold Harefoot
  • ·      William the Bastard
  • ·      Henry the Young King
  • ·      Richard the Lion Heart

And many more.

Think of how much easier life would be if we in advertising adopted this way of naming.

We could have:
  • ·      Fred the Jargon Spewer
  • ·      Margaret the Complication Maker
  • ·      Alphonse the Ad Thief
  • ·      Rob the Credit Stealer
  • ·      Vernon the Cowardly
  • ·      Ezra the Bombastic


I could go on for hours.

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