Isn't it nice when things just work? If you've seen Cog, the award-winning advert created by Wieden + Kennedy for Honda in the UK, you've been amazed by an incredible commercial. At two minutes long, the ad was deemed too long for attention deficit television audiences in America, but was so remarkable the commercial was broadcast as news.

Cog seems more like an award-winning movie trailer than a commercial. If pictures are worth a thousand words, high impact motion pictures like Cog can be powerful branding statements worth millions. And, as with Cog, often the less said the better. The only words spoken in the entire two minute advert is the understated question punctuating the film, "Isn't it nice when things just work?" The single word seen in the film is the brand name.

It's interesting, too, that the word "cog" is used for the title of this advert. A cog is the tooth on the rim of gear wheel, and it bears a physical connection to automobile mechanics in the efficient working of rack and pinion steering and the effective transmission of power from the engine to the wheels. In the film, the cog is the small piece of the mechanical puzzle that starts it all working.

A powerful word, "cog" evokes work--efficient and effective work. It implies integration in the works. A small but important connecting piece in the organization. And, its value-added goes to the extraordinary results achieved. It's in this sense that the word cog works, behind the scenes, as an effectve element of the branding of companies as different as Contract Office Group and Happy Cog Studios. Nowhere on those websites is there offered any explanation whatsoever of the name cog. Isn't it nice when names just work?