“My friend told me to call because you called out the name of my daughter. I’ve never listened to your station before!”

Stations that play the Family Name Game® understand the power of a name. A community of voices introducing traffic or weather, birthdays, anniversaries, can all be used effectively to create word-of-mouth. (They can also be used ineffectively adding clutter).

Coca-Cola’s new campaign invites you to #ShareaCoke with the someone whose name is on the label. This a ‘trigger’, something designed in that creates a reason to act.

In their book “Made to Stick”, Chip and Dan Heath share the story of a newspaper with a remarkable 100% circulation rate; everyone in his small town reads it. The publisher’s country wisdom was simple: “Names, Names, Names”, reasoning that people read his newspaper because they wanted to see their own names (or someone else’s).

The power of a name was evident in social media when Starbucks recently offered a $5 eGift card to those who would “@tweetacoffee to” the Twitter handle of a friend.

“This can be between the closest of friends, the most distant of colleagues, or even between people who have not even had the chance to meet yet in person, but have connected in some way on Twitter. We love the possibilities that the Twitter community can unlock to share acts of kindness with one another.”

What if…

…in a world of cookie cutter formats programmed remotely by people who couldn’t even find your city on a map, the most effective free viral marketing tool was the power of a name.

® Family Name Game is a registered trademark of someone who looks a lot like me, and no one can use it without my attorney Crazy Bernie saying so. Or something.