it's a common dilemma in s-pop: how do you succeed as a company? at any given time, there can be dozens of companies all competing for the same pool of 50 or so people. standing out from the rest, and gathering a real audience, is harder than ever. it can be easy to relegate this creativity to basic canva templates, or have chatgpt do the logo-making and concept work for you. at first glance, they may look professional enough. but the keyword there is look. i won't get into why exactly ai use is bad- that's a topic for another post- but my point today is to give you some tips, in case you're one of the people experiencing this! hopefully, you guys consider me qualified enough to talk about this. i think i am, having successfully run FIRA STUDIOS and having debuted two groups so far, WISHME and ENMUSE. but of course, this is all my opinions and what has worked for me may not work the same for you <3 NAMING TIPS 1) back to basics when i name groups, i begin by going back to their basic concept. what's the vibe i want them to give off? for ENMUSE, this was elegant, cool, mature, and stylish. combining this with FIRA's own overarching concept of being about the music more than the fame, i came up with the idea of the members being 'muses' to other people, like WISHME's (which i'll cover later). the "EN" was honestly just a fun prefix to make it sound better, but does also give off a vibe of the members bringing you into their vibe and under their spell. 2) the telephone game this works particularly well if you have a concept but it doesn't seem to lend itself well to a name! i used this method to name WISHME. i began with the FIRA concept of being about the music ("forever inspiring real artists") and knew i wanted the WISHME concept to be something like a shooting star; they burn bright now, but will eventually fade (and leave s-pop). but shooting star is two words, and the concept's been used so many times in s-pop before. so instead of naming the group that, i took it a step further. what do you do with a shooting star? you wish on it. and that's where the "wish" in WISHME came from. the "me" came from me trying to make it seem more like a classic s-pop group; a confident concept revolving around "if i'm a shooting star, people will wish to be me". 3) pin it sounds simple, but honestly, this has helped me out so much, not just for FIRA content but in my own solo work as well. searching "elegant words" can get you dozens of results, and if you pick one that matches your concept then there's ready-made meaning right there. you can also find good prefixes and suffixes to use to elevate the name. CONCEPT TIPS 1) self-reflection no, i swear i'm not trying to become your therapist- okay so this is pretty much a foolproof way to have a good foundation for your company as a whole. it's what i did with FIRA and is something i think has led to the company's success. basically, ask yourself what you want to do with the company. the problem with this method is that if your goal is simply "i'm going to make this lookalike group" or "i want to become popular in s-pop", a company might not be the best option. you can't start a company with the sole goal of popularity. it will burn you out. once you have your own mission for your company, build it around that mission. everything should connect, creating something that you can be known for. dolle ent was originally known for their beautiful thumbnails. mission ent for their unique style and trend-setting groups. FIRA for their mission. and so on.
2) professionalism i've mentioned this in most of my marketing analyses and it's still just as true- good spelling, grammar, and a professional presence can make the difference between recognized and forgotten. this also ties back into point #1: if you're not passionate enough about your company to have proper grammar or spelling, why would you be passionate enough to manage your group well? you don't have to use fancy vocab or write paragraphs, but cleaning up your text and putting a little more effort into them can go a long way. it doesn't even need to be aesthetic! 3) don't give up if you know what you're doing (or even if you don't quite yet), you'll get your turn to shine. even if it feels like you've tried everything, don't give up if it's what you really want to do. i might be the prime example of this; FIRA is my sixth attempt at running a company, and somehow where the other five failed, it has flourished. with enough patience, you can get to that point as well. if something goes wrong or your plans don't work out as you'd hoped, don't be afraid to change them up or adjust them! flexibility is something valuable in company owning, both from a logistical perspective and from a line-deadline perspective. thanks for reading through this! I hope this project has helped you in some way, and feel free to discuss this or ask questions in the comments! additionally, making this has made me consider making a "behind-the-scenes" of an upcoming FIRA project; should i do it? after i leave scratch, these types of projects will be posted on @firastudios instead.