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.