Why Boat Names Are Doing Better Branding Than Half the Industry
I spent a Sunday morning wandering a marina and accidentally fell down a branding rabbit hole. Boat names. Not the glossy superyachts with corporate crests, but the working boats, the weekend boats, the ones that smell faintly of bait and optimism. Names hand painted, slightly crooked, deeply considered. This is brand strategy with skin in the game. You can tell when someone argued about it over dinner.
A good boat name does three jobs. It tells a story, signals the owner’s personality, and survives being shouted across water in a stiff breeze. That last part matters. In advertising, we forget how words behave when they leave the page. These names are tested in real conditions. Sun glare. Distance. A bloke named Dave yelling it while tying a rope. If it still works, it works.
What struck me was restraint. No backstory essays. No clever-for-clever’s-sake wordplay. Just confidence. Short names. Emotional names. Sometimes funny, sometimes a bit sentimental, sometimes quietly bold. You can spot the overthinkers instantly, the names that try too hard and end up apologising for themselves. The best ones never explain. They just float.
There’s a lesson here for brands that keep adding layers. More copy. More justification. More meetings. Meanwhile, a boat called Second Wind cruises past and tells you everything you need to know in two words. Maybe the future of branding is less deck and more hull. Pick something you can live with, shout across a marina, and still love five years later.
A good boat name does three jobs. It tells a story, signals the owner’s personality, and survives being shouted across water in a stiff breeze. That last part matters. In advertising, we forget how words behave when they leave the page. These names are tested in real conditions. Sun glare. Distance. A bloke named Dave yelling it while tying a rope. If it still works, it works.
What struck me was restraint. No backstory essays. No clever-for-clever’s-sake wordplay. Just confidence. Short names. Emotional names. Sometimes funny, sometimes a bit sentimental, sometimes quietly bold. You can spot the overthinkers instantly, the names that try too hard and end up apologising for themselves. The best ones never explain. They just float.
There’s a lesson here for brands that keep adding layers. More copy. More justification. More meetings. Meanwhile, a boat called Second Wind cruises past and tells you everything you need to know in two words. Maybe the future of branding is less deck and more hull. Pick something you can live with, shout across a marina, and still love five years later.