Why call it Donut, when it is full of advice, not jam?

Why call it Donut, when it is full of advice, not jam?

I’m told that Egg was never intended to be the name for Prudential's online bank. The market research team included it in the list of potential names for fun, just to make up the numbers. But when the team showed the list to people, everyone said the name Egg was the best. So the new bank was named Egg.

The Donut was kind of similar. At BHP we do ‘donut diagrams’ for projects in which we match sponsors and experts with specific topics. So at the outset it was natural to call the Marketing Donut project, um, ‘the Marketing Donut project’.

Then it happened to us. We came up with sixty potential names to consider, plus the name Donut. And people didn’t rave about any of them, except Donut. OK, not every name was totally serious. I will never be able to rid my mind of the 60th name, and the rationale for it: ‘Uranus, a space-age name that is, quite simply, unforgettable’. Ahem. Yes, and unsponsorable too.

So we carried on calling the project Donut for the time being. And the accolades poured in. Great name! Cool name! I like it!

For a publisher that does a lot of work for the government, including content on tax and law, this was heady stuff. BHP, the cool one.

But it was the meetings that sealed the matter. We took a box of donuts to our first meeting with Google and Royal Mail. The presentation we showed them was a hit, but the donuts were a sensation. We looked at each other with the same realisation: the name Donut was here to stay.

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