The power of names

During my plane ride to Dar es Salaam on Sunday I read an article in NEWSWEEK about the discovery of the term BRIC (an economic term indicating the countries Brazil, Russia, India, and China).

It was Goldman Sachs chief economist Jim O’Neill who invented this term as a way of capturing the idea that economic power will shift to the emerging markets sooner rather than later. What’s interesting about this is that Goldman has since actively used it as a marketing ploy for their emerging markets derivatives and whatnot, and that-reportedly-soon after O’Neill first used the term it was bandied about at boardrooms and CEOs where pursuing BRIC strategies with their staff.

Apparently, having a term to mark this seemingly unconnected group helped people ‘get’ the idea and attach meaning to it. Having a term made it important, and made it easy to talk about. A very complex idea was made simple by attaching an acronym to it.

I know this kind of thinking often results in the kind of pap your hear executives say when they listen to the advertising agency too much, but really, consider this next time you need to convince some people of your Big New Idea.