Mount Shasta, March 2019 — On Facebook recently, a young woman asked “I need to come up with a new business name for my catering and food booth business .. So I connect with mountaingoat .. I’m a double Capricorn born in the year of the goat and live in the mountains … and it’s my email address .. so I could use some input .. which of these do you like?” And then she listed these business names …

• Mountaingoat Organics
• Mountaingoat delights
• Mountaingoat offerings 

She’s Making a HUGE Mistake

Using an image of a goat in connection with food is a bad idea, because “goat” has pre-existing connotations (in at least English and Spanish) which don’t go well with food.

These negative connotations include (a) being dirty, (b) being smelly, (c) an older man with inappropriate sexual interest (as in “old goat” and as in “cavron!”

This probably derives from Pan or Bacchus related to hysterical Pan-ic, wine, debauchery, as this demi-god is always painted with goat’s flanks. And perhaps also with the devil, and the tarot card of the devil, pictured with goat’s flanks and showing bondage of male and female, perhaps to bestial desires.

Compare the feeling of “Goat Catering” with the feeling of “Celestial Catering,” just as an example.

Don’t believe me? In love with your idea? Ask 20 people (without telling them why) what they think about a catering company named “goat.” See what the consensus is.

It’s Not Logical, But It Is Human Nature

Now realize, none of this is “logical” but the automatic unconscious mind works always and only by association, and sensory associations bleed over whether logical or not.

For example, you wouldn’t name your catering company “Smelly Socks Catering” and although “goat” isn’t as obviously awful as smelly socks, it will evoke unpleasant associations all the same.

Find Something That Works Better

Find a better name, that provides the flavor of the wonderful experience you wish to provide to people.,

Just sayin. (I do have 40 years advertising experience, NLP training, and am a certified hypnotherapist, and a LOT of copywriting study over the years that leads me to these conclusions.)

Don’t mean to be rude, but perhaps you will re-consider when you think about — who do you want to please?

• Your own creative urge, “expressing yourself?”
• Or would you like to please your prospects, to turn them into customers?

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