Name It

“Alright team,” said Curtis, the marketing director, as he shut the door behind the final arrivals to the emergency meeting, “as you likely have heard, we’re in real trouble here. Someone in purchasing botched the zipper material order. As such, we ordered too much not to use it, but not enough to zipper all our lightweight long-sleeve shirts fully to the hem. As such, we’ve done the only thing we can do. We’ve given each shirt a length of zipper that reaches about a quarter of the way down. Now it’s on us, the marketing department, to save the day once again. We need a product name. One that makes this terrible error seem intentional. So, go ahead. Fire away.”

“What about quarter-zip pullovers?” offered Brad.

“Dammit, Brad!” Curtis said, slamming his hand down on the conference table. “We’re Puma! We’re synonymous with innovation! We’re the leading name in fashion! We can’t just half-ass this!”

“How about,” Erin said, “‘The Chest Revelation.’”

“‘Show the chest, none of the rest,’” said Asher.

“‘The revelation will not be televised,’” Carrie said.

“I’ll mock some of these up,” said Dianne.

“Wait, hold on,” Curtis said. “We can’t just go with the first idea. We need to present at least three to the c-suite.”

“Customizable V-Necks,” Carrie offered.

“‘As much V as you want,’” said Asher.

“Or, what if we spelled want with two v’s, like on the poster for that movie, The Witch?” Erin suggested.

“It could sound like a vampire was saying it,” said Asher. “‘As much v as you vvant.’”

“Great for Halloween,” Carrie said.

“I’ll mock some of these up,” said Dianne.

“Okay, I’ll be honest, I’m a bit less enthusiastic about this one,” Curtis said. “But we’ll put it down. Let’s go for a third.”

“I really think we should just do ‘quarter-zip pullovers,’” Brad said.

“Oh really? Do you, Brad?” Curtis said, a note of disgust in his voice. “And why, pray tell, would we opt for something so low effort?”

“Mostly because it’s just what these things are called,” Brad said. To prove it, he held up his phone and scrolled several pages showing quarter-zip pullovers.

“Ugh, if you insist,” Curtis said. “That’ll be our third idea.”

“I’ll mock it up,” Dianne said.

In the end, the c-suite went with Brad’s idea.