Know-How Exchange : Taglines/Names

When I first read the "Meezen Plaas", I was thinking it was an Indian or Africa name, so would be expecting the question to be related to that.

I'd prefer the French version. On the web site and marketing materials, you can list the phonetic pronunciation and meaning as part of the story behind you business.

Instead of trying to be cute with your name, you're probably better served just telling people what you do and/or what important (and ideally unique) benefit you deliver to them. Giving them a name they can't pronounce will almost guarantee they won't remember it either.

So the place to start is by defining what it is you want to communicate with your name ... and very specifically who your primary target audience is going to be. "Prominent families, businesses and universities" is too diverse an audience for good and clear communication. Having that broad an audience will force you to have a name that is sub-optimal for a large chunk of your audience, and maybe irrelevant to all of them.

P.S. What country is your target audience in? What language(s) are predominant?

"Meezen Plaas" Catering makes me think you specialize in Dutch food or something like that. If customers in your marketing area are not familiar with the French term "mise en place" and what it means, then using Meezen Plaas would confuse and confound them further.

Your name should express the type of food/catering events you create or evoke a clear emotion/association amongst your customers when they are thinking about entertaining.

You and some friends could free-associate some terms that also express "everything in its place"--the culinary methodology behind good cooking technique. Or just stick with the French term--it's classic.

Unless you have a large local population that understands what "Mise en Place" means, you're starting with a deficit, especially if you create a unique spelling of it. If you like the connotation of the name, then focus on the connotation, rather than the term. For example, "Place Perfect Catering" or "Catering Moderna". If you want a name with "height", then you'll want your tagline to focus clearly on what you uniquely provide.

I don't consider myself elite, but I do know exactly what you're trying to do, however, I think it fails, because your audience is most likely looking for cues to enable them to buy great catering services for some special occasion.

They probably don't know and almost certainly don't care that you have formal chef training or that you use French terms and French disciplines in the kitchen.

If you really want to use French, you would be better off with a more widely understood term like "Bon Appetit Catering Services". I think everyone would understand that.

I don't know where you're offering these services, but you might want to add terms to your website, promotional materials, packaging and delivery vehicles like "authentic American and international catering", certified Kosher and Halal kitchens, ISO 22000 certified or whatever the applicable standard is.

Hope that helps

ChrisB