“How did you come up with the name ‘100 YARDS’?”
It’s a question we get almost daily. So for all our clients, friends, and just-plain-curious contacts, we are putting in on the record, courtesy of 100 YARDS co-founder Josh Mait:
In 2018, my partner, Alex Gonzalez, and I started to realize we had something that started to look like a real company. For a while, our corporate name was simply what we did: CMO Services, LLC.
Boring.
And that’s ironic considering how we tend to approach branding/positioning for our clients. Funny enough, I think it was Alex who said, “We need a better name.” (If you know Alex, you know).
Like every naming project, inspiration comes from who knows where. Or—as Rick Rubin states: “Talent is the ability to let ideas manifest themselves through you.” I guess I got lucky here because after one late-night session thinking about things, the name appeared and was instantly attractive:
Strong, somewhat-masculine, sports reference
Spoke to key POV: there is no silver bullet in marketing, you have to do X number of things, and it is a long journey.
The URL that was available furthered that narrative: 100yardstogo. It gave the sense of a process and journey.*
MOST IMPORTANT: it is memorable because it is interesting.
Related: it is a question name, as in, people want to ask questions about it. Which, in many cases, is all that matters when it comes to branding.
We have played with the logo and the visual identity at different points but ultimately stayed the course because it just feels strong and powerful and has a POV. Which is us.
*There has been confusion around how to write out our name 100 YARDS or 100 YARDS TO GO… we are here to say we are (currently) the former. Space, all caps, and all.
