Marketing With Acronyms

This leaked internal memo run by The Economist a few weeks ago is simply amazing. It reveals either a brilliantly meritocratic decision-making process within a leading Wall Street bank, or a strange sort of marketing nihilism. Maybe both. Excerpt:

We’re in a race with our rivals. Goldman’s idea is the N-11, the “Next Eleven” countries. But that has been around for five years and sounds like a French highway. The Japanese have come up with VISTA, for Vietnam, Indonesia, South Africa, Turkey and Argentina; we are using this discreetly in our own marketing to see if they will assert ownership. HSBC (and some guy at the EIU) are hawking the CIVETS—Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa. But why catlike creatures known for producing coffee with their faeces should encapsulate emerging-market growth is unclear.