Are you curious about how V5 Digital got its iconic name?
This isn't a story about marketers sitting in a dark room, brainstorming into the early morning hours over cold pizza and half-drunk coffees, eventually coming up with a perfectly crafted name to represent their ideals, mission, and vision.
No, V5 Digital was not analysed or conceptualised into being. The name is simple, recognizable, personal, and ultimately comes from a place of admiration for advanced, agile planes and the family who finds them fascinating.
In 2018 Armin Wieland, the founder of V5 Digital, started searching for a shiny new name to match his shiny new Digital Marketing Agency. He knew he wanted it to be simple, immediately recognizable, different, and easy to pronounce. He looked everywhere for inspiration armed only with the mantra, “I’ll know it when I find it”.
Every great journey begins with a single step…
A blank page can be a daunting thing so Armin started throwing ideas around right away. He researched, wrote down, deleted, and rewrote hundreds of options but nothing hit just right. Exasperated he finally reached out to a brand specialist, Gary, who helped him understand all the interesting elements that go into picking the perfect name for a brand.
Together they came up with, Algorythm Digital and while this was an awesome name, it was a little tiresome to pronounce often...and probably spell correctly too. This name was quickly moved to the innovation and ideation hub at V5 Digital, becoming Algorythm Labs where this clever department that comes up with first-to-market business solutions had no trouble pronouncing…or spelling this tricky moniker.
Inspiration can strike at any moment…
Armin reached out to his family and friends and while they gave him many great ideas none of them resonated with him or represented his brand in the way he had always imagined. He wanted a name that would make waves in a sea of generic digital terms. However, these phone calls had inadvertently planted a seed that was about to blossom into the perfect business title.
You see the Wieland family loves planes! Armin’s uncle Gustav was an aeronautical engineer who headed the design of the Dornier Do 31 VTOL aircraft in the 1960s and his brother is a talented pilot. Some of his earliest memories are of seeing his uncle touch down in his Cessna 210 on the family farm.
Armin says, ”Aircraft have always been a part of my life. While my personal aircraft journey only went from flying paper planes to flying drones; my passion for aircraft is stronger than ever! I still feel like a kid in a candy store whenever I get to take a flight somewhere new.”
So it comes as no surprise that when Armin finally had his epiphany, it involved his love of planes. Like Archimedes, Armin’s eureka moment hit him while taking a shower. He should call his business V5 Digital!
The name he had been looking for all this time had finally found him. However unlike Archimedes, Armin did not excitedly hop out of the shower and sprint through the streets, instead opting to run the idea by his beloved family over WhatsApp.
The Wieland family all loved the name and Armin even got a rare response from his brother who approved wholeheartedly. Armin “knew it when he found it” but what makes this name so perfectly suited to his now thriving Marketing Agency?
Names have power…
Armin says, “The funny part is that once I had this name, everything else started coming together. The meaning, purpose, and values of the business all lined up with the name.”
The letter V comes from the NATO phonetic alphabet and is deeply tied to aircraft and air travel. Just like the jets that Armin admires, he wanted his business to be fast, sleek, advanced, agile, reliable, responsive, and sophisticated in its use of technology.
The V stands for victory, conquering new heights, exceeding the impossible, and continually evolving and improving. It also represents the roman numeral 5 which signifies curiosity, change, freedom and balance; all core elements Armin wanted his business to be centred around.
After this everything fell into place. A name is a powerful thing. It sets the tone for everything that follows and looking at the amazing track record of V5 Digital it was well chosen. As Morris Mandel says, “A name is the blueprint of the thing we call character. You ask, What's in a name? I answer, Just about everything you do."
