Co: is a new New York “brand innovation studio” launched this month by Rosemarie Ryan and Ty Montague, who had formerly been co-presidents for North America at the global advertising agency JWT.
The colon is part of the name; the website is cocollective.com. (I discovered the URL in an AdAge article; good luck using a search engine to find “co ad agency.”)
New York Times advertising columnist Stuart Elliott wrote about the new agency last week:
The name — perhaps one of the pithiest for any agency — is meant to suggest the Co: business model by evoking words like co-creation, collaboration and co-venturing.
Why stop there? I expect the lunchroom will offer co:ffee and co:coa; that art directors will produce co:lor co:mps; that co:pywriters will submit co:ncepts; that top executives will fight over co:rner offices; and that unpaid invoices will be sent to a co:llection agency. Let’s hope no one ends up in co:urt.
Because that wouldn’t be co:ol.
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Yes, the blue colon (co:lon?) is Co:’s logo. And yes, they apparently expect us to use the colon in the name even when it’s followed by an apostrophe. (For an example of a semicolon in a logo, see my post on Encore Careers.)
On a broader note, why do companies use domain extensions within their core names?
WidgetNet.com, BizInfoWidgets.us, and CoInfoNet.biz all seem to fail the bus test, conducted by shouting a company name or domain across a crowded bus to see if it can be correctly understood over the background noise.
Posted by: Anthony Mitchell | September 21, 2010 at 02:42 PM
Pithy. That's a kind way to put it. I'd say it takes co:jones to go for this one. And don't even get me started on its ability to function as a trademark - either the word or the colon.
Posted by: Jessica | September 21, 2010 at 05:29 PM
Reminds me of the fine people at demotivators.com who have a gag about trademarking this emoticon :-(
Posted by: panavia999 | September 29, 2010 at 09:35 AM