Choosing a company name is a strategic decision and is one of the most important steps when starting a business. It is the first point of contact with prospective customers, it’s your identity, and how you are perceived and remembered. Therefore it must represent who you are and candidly, you must love it.
When our company shifted direction in 2023 towards being more focused on becoming a tourist attraction agency, a name change was the natural next step. We wanted a name that represents who we are, what we do and it needed to be fun. A decision was made, we are Talking Tortoise.
With such a unique name, naturally we receive the question, “Why are you called Talking Tortoise?”
We thought, what better way to answer this question than to ask the people who answer this question the most, our team.
Newest member of the team, marketing assistant intern Lilly answers: “We’re a business that has a passion for and interacts with lots of different animal collections, so our name represents our industry by including one of our favourite animals in the name, a tortoise.”
Marketing Development Manager Rochelle describes her thoughts, “Talking Tortoise uses an alliteration that not only is connected to our passion and what we do, but that is also catchy and memorable. It flows off the tongue and gives an insight into what we can offer.”
Marketing executive Emily says, “When I first heard the name talking tortoise, I thought it was so unique and it left a lasting impression on me. When learning more about our work with tourist attractions, it all started to add up. I like the idea that tortoises aren’t particularly known to be talkative, but as a PR and marketing agency, we bring out the confidence of companies and get people talking about them.”
Managing director Jessica discussed making the decision, “Truthfully, I love alliteration. When picking our company name I wanted something that had a memorable rhythm that leaves a lasting impression. The link to tortoise is because it’s an animal we adore and ‘talking’ because we get people talking about our clients gaining traction. It makes perfect sense.”
Commercial director Martin contributes, “I knew Jessica wanted alliteration, and I agree that it creates a great flow for the name. We brainstormed some ideas, such as makoor marketing or chameleon consultancy, but Talking Tortoise connected with us the most.”
As you can see from the team, no two answers are the same. There’s a range of reasons why we’re called Talking Tortoise, and it all started with an alliteration.
After choosing our name, due to its multifaceted nature, we have found many links to stories and legends about tortoises that fit with our narrative.
A lot of customers and contacts think our name is linked to the story of the tortoise and the hare, and although this isn’t the case, it does link to a lot of our messaging and missions. Our focus on inbound marketing, like the tortoise in the story, is slow and steady but in the long run helps us build our trust with clients and credibility. Taking our time getting to know our clients and their products, cementing long-term relationships where outcome succeeds and wins the race. Our sentiment of small steps having a big impact links to the moral of the story.
There’s a mythological legend we like of the idea of a world turtle that supports a flat earth on its back. We like to think of ourselves in this light as an agency that supports a range of different sized industries. Similarly, the Hindu legend of the tortoise supporting the 7 elephants connotes the idea that like the tortoise, we support and carry our different clients.
These are just a few examples of connections that our business had to a tortoise and why we love our name.
Keeping in theme with tortoises, we even have our own tortoise in the office who we’re looking after as a part of a conservation programme, meet Fred.
As a team at the start of the year, we became tortoise keepers for the day and fed some Galapogas Tortoises which was an incredible experience.
As a business, we help our clients come out of their shell (final pun I promise), our mission is to get people talking about our clients and we’re there to support them each step of the way. A tortoise is unique, with no two shells the same, the same way that no two clients are the same.
Our relationship with our clients is what makes us who we are and our client summarised it perfectly the other day at a site visit, “A tortoise has never offended anybody.” And he couldn’t be more right.
