As the shake-out in the ad industry continues, traditional agencies and their names are vanishing, being replaced by agencies whose very names demonstrate that a new day has (finally) dawned:

The advertising business is undergoing an upheaval, forcing executives to radically change how they do business. Marketers are trying desperately to stay ahead of the technological innovations that are changing how consumers view their messages – and are putting pressure on their agencies to adapt.

The ad firms are more eager to please than ever. The major agencies face shrinking profit margins and sagging stock prices, leading to a shakeout and a frenzied effort to cut costs.

It is unclear if the traditional agencies will be nimble enough to halt a slow decline. Already, many famous names are vanishing: N.W. Ayer; Bates; Bozell; D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles; Earle Palmer Brown; Lintas; Warwick Baker O’Neill.

The big agencies also face hip, new rivals, which have pounced on the opportunity to steal business. Those boutiques use their oddball names – like 180, Amalgamated, Mother, Nitro, Soul, StrawberryFrog, Taxi and Zig – as branding devices to signal they are not about business as usual.

These so-called “oddball” names do quadruple duty — they demonstrate a different mindset and approach, they are less confusing, and they provide the agencies with a wealth of imagery for years to come in their own promotional campaigns. Such names also end the endless problems that ad agencies named for founders incur when there’s a shake up at the top.

The problem with a name like, “Bartleby, Scrivner, + Budd” is that when Bartleby is sacked for ethical transgressions that make their way into Adweek, the agency suddenly becomes Scrivner, Budd, Typee + Omoo, until of course the lusty affair between Scrivner and Typee culminates in a full-blown sexual harassment suit.

Founder-named names also have the problems that they:

• are chosen primarily to stroke the egos of the founders
• demonstrate a complete lack of creativity by a creative agency
• all sound alike
• ultimately result in clients demanding face time with the principals.

It’s all bad. And now these names just demonstrate “old school” — even the clients are tired of them.

Of the new batch of names, our favorite is Mother, because it works on the greatest number of levels and is at once benign and comforting and completely outrageous. Here is just some of the collective consciousness that Mother taps into:

den mother
earth mother
fairy god mother
love your mother
mother and child
mother and son
mother ann
mother bulb
mother bunch
mother cabrini
mother carey’s chicken
mother carey’s goose
mother carey’s hen
mother cell
mother child relations
mother church
mother clap
mother colony
mother complex
mother country
mother cyst
mother douglas
mother earth
mother figure
mother goddess
mother goose
mother goose rhymes
mother hen
mother house
mother hubbard
mother hubbard clause
mother huddle’s oven
mother india
mother instinct
mother jones
mother jones magazine
mother knows best
mother language
mother liquor
mother lode
mother love bone
mother mary bernadette
mother mold
mother naked
mother nature
mother night
mother nuclide
mother of all bombs
mother of bastards
mother of believers
mother of books
mother of cities
mother of god
mother of invention
mother of parliaments
mother of the chapel
mother of vinegar
mother outlaw
mother plant
mother queen
mother russia
mother sauces
mother seton
mother ship
mother shipton
mother sick
mother spleenwort
mother star
mother superior
mother superior complex
mother surrogate
mother teresa
mother tincture
mother to be
mother tongue
mother water
mother wit
mother with child
mother wort
mother yaw
mother’s apron strings
mother’s day
mother’s helper
mother’s little helper
mother’s mark
mother’s milk
mother’s son
motherboard
mother-cell
mother-child relations
mothered
motherese
mother-fucker
mother-fucking
motherglass
motherhand shiatsu
motherhood
motherhouse
motherhouses
mothering
mothering sunday
mother-in-law
mother-in-law apartment
mother-in-law joke
mother-in-law’s
mother-in-law’s tongue
motherland
motherlands
motherless
motherlessness
motherlike
motherliness
motherly
mother-naked
mother-of-pearl
mother-of-pearl cloud
mother-of-thousands
mother-of-thyme
mothers
mothers boy
mothers daughter
mothers of invention
mothers of pearl
mothershead
mothershed
mother-sick
mothers-in-law
mother-water
motherwell
motherwell and wishaw
motherwell football club
motherwell robert
motherwell william
mother-wit
mother-wort
motherworts
mothery
queen mother
whistler’s mother

Now try the same exercise with the name “D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles”. Go ahead, take all the time you need.