Last month, Adweek spoke to Steve Stone, president and creative director at Heat/San Francisco.
Q. Why do you give your agencies names rather than calling them Stone & Elder, etc.?
A. I have always wanted aplace where people could feel like they could be part of a bigger entity, to emotionally feel like they belong to something. When the partners’ names are on the door, it’s hard for people to feel a true connection that lasts.
Here’s more on Stone’s naming conventions, from The San Francisco Chronicle:
The Black Rocket founders had taken the name of a steam locomotive, Rocket, built by a British engineer, George Stephenson, that won a race in 1829. They liked the analogy: Stephenson had come from big companies, while they had come from large agencies to try to make it on their own.
“Heat,” said Stone, offers itself to “clients … who may have brands or products that have gone cold.”
