How does an up-and-coming advertising agency stand out from the crowd in L.A., where so many firms are begging for attention?

Get a funny name. Not just any funny name, like Wong Doody or World Wide Wadio. Get one that expresses a willingness to break a sweat doing the dirty work.

Consider G & M; Plumbing, an ad agency and commercial production company that opened last summer in Santa Monica. In an effort to set the firm apart, founders Glenn Miller and Mickey Taylor kicked around a few names before hitting on “plumbing.”

“It’s a bit of an analogy,” Miller says. “We’ll roll up our sleeves and get in there and take care of business 24 hours a day. People seem to like it, and it’s gotten us some attention. So I guess it’s working.”

Miller said the name also serves another purpose. “Hey, if this advertising thing goes south, we have all the stationery we need to do something else,” he jokes.

Another ad firm with a wildly deceptive name is Kowloon Wholesale Seafood Co. on snooty Montana Avenue in Santa Monica, launched a few years ago by well-known ad executive Dick Sittig, formerly of Chiat/Day.

Sittig not only dreamed up the popular alter ego for the chief executive of Jack in the Box, but also does the voice of the big-headed guy. Kowloon officials didn’t return phone calls last week to discuss how many walk-in customers they get looking for catfish or flounder.