The Secrets Of The Streets: Chapter 2 Review
The Secret Of Boniface
Chapter two of Teju Baby on carving out names for creative which in other words can be called “branding.”
That is getting a name for yourself as a creative or for your business. The importance and the weight behind names matter a lot.
The writer recalls when he chose the name TEJU as his brand name and thought it would stick with people particularly those in his industry.
The name however did not go down well with Dan Foster who was promoting a popular comedian Tee-A’s show.
The list of comedians billed to perform includes Alibaba, Tee-A, Basketmouth and Teju. But to the surprise of many, Dan Foster being an American
pronounced Teju as “Tiyuuu” leaving many confused.
When Teju close friends heard the promo for the show, it was clear that his name was missing from the list of performers.
They queried why his name was not on the list and probed the name Tiyuuu as mentioned by Dan Foster who is late now by the way. No thanks to the deadly COVID-19 pandemic that engulfed the world.
It was after this Teju had an epiphany to coin a name that can easily stick with his audience.
Thankfully, Tee-A’s wife and sister came with the name “Tejubabyface” which at first sounded odd to the name bearer himself.
Teju charged his readers to understand that when a brand name is first coined, it might sound odd, but with time people will begin to familiarize with it.
Teju gave a few steps to creating a name and the mistakes to avoid during this process.
1- Don’t Choose A Name Just For The Sake Of It
There is no point troubling yourself when you can use just your birth name as your brand name. I hope you knew that some of Nigeria’s finest use the name that was given to them as their stage name?
Olamide, Julius Agwu to mention a few are on this table that I am shaking right now.
Teju advised that the name you choose should it be flippant but functional and necessary.
Your audience should be able to relate to it.
2- Be Wary Of Choosing A Terminal Name
Perhaps this is one of the best pieces of advice Teju gave in this chapter.
As a creative, you should know that age will catch up on you no matter how you try to hold it down.
A typical example will be calling yourself “young this’ or ‘little that’
You are never going to be young forever, so why do you want to add such prefixes to your name?
However, Tejubabyface made it clear that there are exceptions to every rule. What this means is that you could be lucky to use such prefixes as mentioned above to announce your invention it does not always work.
It is like a gamble which you may not want to take.
3- Avoid Picking An Established Name or Anything Close To It
During the Easter period in the year 2021, there was an uproar on the internet over claims that a certain upcoming musician called Wisekid cloned the album of the popular pop artiste, Wizkid.
The reports revealed that the newbie artiste makes nothing less than 30 million naira per month with his name and album.
Wizkid last album was titled “ Made In Lagos” while that of Wisekid was titled “Lasgidi Made.”
It was his own ideas that whenever people search for Wizkid album, they will stumble on his own too. And somehow, music lovers and Wizkid fans fell for it.
Now back to Tejubabface, he made it succinctly clear that choosing a name close to an established one could damage your brand and make you unknown.
The demerit far outweighs the advantages especially if you are still unknown.
He also countered the excuse creatives in this category come up with such as “I already chose the name before I knew there was another name close to it.’
Or trying to justify that you came to this industry before the one now popular with using that brand name.
I see a lot of Nigerian musicians making these mistakes a lot. Imagine another artiste using the name “ Embryo” when most music lovers in Nigeria are stick with the name of Brymo.
I sincerely think some creatives intentionally create names close to established artiste name to vain traction which may not for sometime but in the end the consequences may outlast the advantages.
4- Don’t be silly with your names
Be careful with the name you choose, you don’t want to have a name with the prefix of Jesus of Allah which some of the faithful of these prophets might find offending.
Imagine calling yourself Corporate Clown? That you are a comedian does not mean you should be silly with your brand name.
Take for instance, how would you feel if in the future your wife is asked who she is married to? Clown?
It is certain that she will be called Mrs Clown which may not go down well with her.
Tejubabyface summarizes this chapter advising the creative to choose a name that he or she is happy with and commit the rest to faith.
Just imagine how many time Diddy has changed his name?
Some of us don’t even know what he is called these days.
“The critical question to ask in naming a brand is, what does the name convey to third parties… Invariably the equity built into a name matters. And this takes time. Consistency is the name of the game.”
-Leke Alder.
