My team at Thomson Target Media (a division of Thomson Corp.) spent weeks brainstorming a name for our new healthy living publication where I served as editor-in-chief. We focused-grouped names, and those that made it through were thwarted by the trademark process. Then one day, I came to work early; I wanted to get a quiet start to my day. It came to me: This publication is about the body but so much more. Hence, the name Body & More.
My product manager came in a few minutes later. He, too, had arrived early (we really liked working for this company, if you can tell). I went over, and almost in a whisper, said “Body & More.” He barely registered an acknowledgment. We had been through this before. Would the name resonate with the rest of our team, which included an art director and marketing manager? Would our CEO buy it? Was it trademarked? I knew the drill, so I walked away, uncommitted to a specific outcome.
An hour later, my head was down staring into my computer screen and I felt a presence. I looked up there was Steve, my product manager, and several other team members who worked on other titles in our downtown Chicago niche publishing office — entertainment, NASCAR, kids, etc. In unison, they yelled: “It’s about time you thought of something!”
Body & More was born.
Because our corporation eventually divested its newspaper division, my beloved Thomson Target Media was also dissolved. Body & More now exists as a dissembled syndicated print and online publication owned by Content That Works, which includes a few original members of the Thomson team. The heart of the matter, however, lives on.