Mark McConville

April - June 2011

From starting with a vision for change, but being unsure how to go about it I had to begin somewhere. The following is a list of progress that was made right at the very start of the building process.

• Started out wanting to call the business Southern Cross Comedy

• Found all domain names were available for Southern Cross Comedy so purchased them .
• Registered Southern Cross Comedy as a business.
• Submitted trademark applications for Southern Cross Comedy

• Trademark applications rejected due to conflict with the Southern Cross Media Group of companies.

• I felt it important to be able to trademark and totally understood the conflict in names, so the process of coming up with an alternative name began. 

• Struggled to find a new name for the business that would be suitable.
• While unsure of a name the basic structure was being thought out re products and services.

• Met singer Ash Puriri on a cruise with comedian Dave Burke and all of the outlining of the business started to come together. It was on this cruise that the name Comedy Unlimited came up. Ash and Dave spent hours with me on that cruise nutting things out. Thanks lads...

• Ash Puriri happens to be a huge fan of comedy and comedians and took a genuine interest in helping out with business advice and planning.

• Comedy Unlimited domains were available for Australia. Even though there are companies in both the US and UK who trade under the same name I felt it really captured the limitless opportunities for the business so I ran with it.
• On June 14th  2011 Comedy Unlimited registered as a business with Office of Fair Trading Qld.

You have to start somewhere, and having the right company name is very important.  Also it was about at that time that I started to become interested in branding and having a good strong company name goes a long way when building a brand. But that name has to stand for something, it has to have a brand promise and it has to honour that promise every time someone iteracts with the company.

Right from the very start I've been very conscious of the fact that we have two brand promises here. Obviously one for the customer, and equally important, one for the comedians.

Mark McConville